You Either Die A Hero
by Bella The Strange
Summary: Or Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain. Ianto Jones wakes up to find himself in the fifty-first century. The Usual Warnings: Slash, swearing, mature themes, time travel... Jack Harkness, eventually.
1. Welcome To The World Of Tomorrow!

x x x

**Disclaimer**: The usual. I own nothing... and I most certainly don't own the two main characters, the 'verse it's set in, or any of the lines I'm using as chapter titles.

**The Usual Warnings**: Slash, swearing, mature themes, time travel... Jack Harkness (eventually).

**Author's Note**: Alright, as there are rumours flying around about recasting a younger version of Jack Harkness for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, I figured I'd better get my ass in gear and start posting this so I can prove I had the ideas for myself if anything synchs up. No, seriously, it wouldn't be the first time.

I've planned this story right through to the end, but have only fully written up to chapter eight, as of this moment. I already have three other epic projects going on, as well, so I will be very slow to update. Consider yourselves warned.

As always, reviews are the fuel that keeps me writing, so please don't forget to leave some scraps for the craven attention-seeker.

x x x

**Chapter 1: "Welcome To The World Of Tomorrow!"**

x x x

Ianto Jones began to wake up slowly and groggily.

Then the world began to tilt at an alarming angle, and jolted him into full wakefulness rather suddenly. While this did serve to restore his equilibrium, and reassure him that the ground was not literally falling out from under him... his head now hurt like the world was ending. Again.

Or maybe just like a bad hangover. Hadn't had one of those in years, though.

He groaned weakly, "Uhgh... what happened last night?" he asked himself, screwing up his eyes tightly against a suddenly rather bright light that he didn't want to confront just yet.

He distantly noticed that his voice sounded strange to his own ears, and he frowned, assuming that he was must still be feeling fuzzy from whatever had rendered him unconscious in the first place.

He tried to figure out how he had been knocked out. Was he drugged? The last he could recall, he had been in the Hub. With Jack... and the stopwatch... and no clothes.

Alright, no thinking about that right now. Not until he knew where he was.

He tried to sit up, finding it very difficult to even lift his eyelids, let alone the rest of his body. He settled for squinting in the bright light, only to find himself face-to-face with an unfamiliar man, who was leaning over him and grinning enthusiastically. He had floppy fair hair and a distinct air of manic glee about him.

"Who're you?" Ianto managed to ask.

"Friends call me Max." the stranger said brightly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Or, more recently, Frankenstein. I just brought you back from the dead."

Ianto stared at him, "Wha-? How?"

He tried to move, but realised he was tied down. He managed to lift his head, and saw the clinical and efficient restraints on his wrists and ankles. And he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and pants... comfortable, but utterly hideous. In the wrong light, quite possibly blinding.

"Oh, don't worry about those." Max said, waving dismissively at the restraints, "They're a standard precaution, just in case you did anything rash, if you woke up and didn't understand what was going on. Relax, listen, I'll explain everything."

Ianto slowly lowered his head, and watched as the rather hyperactive man retreated to a nearby desk. Max was wearing the typical white coat of a lab technician or a medic, with a nameplate that identified him as '_Maxwell A. Powers_'.

Scanning the room itself, Ianto considered that it looked distinctly like the unholy lovechild of a hospital and a mad scientist's laboratory. Incredibly disconcerting. Even more so than that time he had woken up in the Torchwood medical bay to find Owen hovering over him with that blasted singularity scalpel.

Well... maybe about equal.

"Okay, here's the thing." Max began, now seated comfortably at his desk, with notes and all. "We found an unidentified piece of advanced technology at the location of some pretty extreme temporal distortion. We couldn't backtrack it without risking injury, so all we have to go on are-" here he pulled a disgusted face, "-archaeological records. Those are pretty damned sketchy at best. We've got no idea who you are, so it was actually quite a huge risk bringing you back. On the bright side, at least we now know that you speak standard Earth English."

Ianto blinked at this, not wanting to contemplate the possible ramifications of those last words just yet. He waited silently, as Max read over his notes for a second, before continuing.

"The device we found was a neuro-receptive micro-recorder." He looked at Ianto, who stared impassively back. "It took a photograph of your brain, at one precise moment." This made only slightly more sense, and Ianto nodded slowly to show as much. "You're my favourite science project. I've spent the last two years trying to find a way to extract a copy of that data into a physical form. We have contacts at a genetics lab, so growing a new body for you was actually the easy part."

Ianto choked at this, "New body?!" he asked, completely shocked.

"Well... yeah." Max said, grinning, "According to what we can tell, it's been about three thousand years since that device was last activated. Y'don't think the original's in any condition to be lived in, anymore, do you? We had no idea who you were or what you looked like. You might not even have been human. You... were human, right?"

"Y-yes."

Max nodded efficiently, "We even took a wild guess at gender." he continued chirpily, "Fifty-fifty's good odds. Which were you before, by the way?"

Ianto felt sick at this. At the far-too-casual way this man was talking about it. He answered weakly, "Male."

"Oh... damn, I owe the boss fifty credits."

Ianto paled at that thought. Then something else that Max has said managed to register through his state of shock, "Wait, did- did you say three _thousand_ years?" Three thousand years in the future!

And now he felt almost physically ill. This wasn't his body. This wasn't his time.

This was all wrong. So very wrong.

"Yeah." Max said, his tone softening to a vague semblance of sympathy, briefly, "Welcome to the year fifty-eighty-four."

Ianto stared for several seconds... then promptly passed out from shock.

x x x


	2. Good News, Everyone!

x x x

**Chapter 2: "Good News, Everyone!"**

x x x

It was all a dream, right? He would wake up safely in his own time, in his own body. Preferably in Jack's arms, as well. Right? Please?

Any one of the above would be a good thing.

Ianto squinted against harsh lights, once more, and then cringed in despair. He was still in that damned mad-scientist's lab! And still tied down far too securely to what was- now he thought about it- a rather comfortable surface. Certainly not a metal table... and certainly not comparable to anything that could ever have been found in the Torchwood medical bay.

"Hey, you're awake." Max cheered, grinning, "Sorry about dumping all that news on you. I've been told it was tactless. Boss gave me an earful for it. You feeling better, yet?"

"No." Ianto said bluntly, "And you talk too fast."

"Yeah, I have been told that before." Max agreed idly, "Boss hates it, says it reminds him of his ex. So happy that was a bad break-up, 'cause I really don't swing that way. Or any way, to be honest. Me, I'm in love with science."

Ianto snorted weakly, trying not to imagine why this man would bother telling him about his boss's love-life. If he was just trying to be friendly by chattering away, it really was not working. "Look, could you please untie me?" he asked hopefully, "This isn't very comfortable, and I promise I'm not going to go berserk and attack anyone... Doctor Frankenstein."

Max chuckled quietly at that joke, then seemed to hesitate, as if weighing the potential consequences of complying with this request. "Sorry, not 'til I'm done talking."

Ianto groaned in despair, "I'm going to die of old age, still tied down here, aren't I?"

Max sniffed in feigned indignity, "If you complain again, possibly."

"Fine. Talk." Ianto said bluntly, staring up at the ceiling.

"First thing's first." Max began far too quickly, "This is a new era. Things will be different. Let's see, you're from the twenty-first century, right?"

Ianto nodded weakly.

"Okay, I'll tell you what. As you may have noticed, and are probably very relieved to know, language hasn't changed too much. I'll give you some texts on contemporary laws and social standards. A lot of new information, better to let you absorb it at your own pace. What you _do_ need to know is where you are, and the basics of what's going to happen to you."

"I'm going to be allowed to read, it's already an improvement." Ianto deadpanned.

Max grinned, "That's the spirit. Alright, then... until you're officially processed and recognised, you're our responsibility. Legally our property, actually. Science project until proven human. Our guards are crack-shots, and while I can and will just have the geneticists make a new body for you, if you try anything stupid... blood and corpse does tend to make a mess of the corridors."

Ianto shuddered at that thought, "I'll behave." he promised. "Anything else? Preferably not more death-threats?"

"That wasn't a threat." Max said, seeming surprised that Ianto had taken it that way, "It was a warning. I like you. Spent longer making you live again than it would take to make a brand new life. I don't want you to get hurt."

Ianto blinked at that, and stared carefully at Max. That had sounded very much like Max had just announced that he thought of his 'favourite science project' as a son. Considering the fact he had proclaimed his undying love for science, not that long... seemed to make perfect sense, actually.

"So is there anything else I need to know, before you can untie me?" he asked, his tone slightly less hostile, now. Still wary, though.

"Three basic rules for now." Max said, nodding, "Don't leave the lab. Don't touch any lab-equipment. And don't tell me your name."

Ianto's brow furrowed at that last one, "Why not?"

"Well, the equipment's kinda dangerous, and it could-"

"No, why shouldn't I tell you my name?"

"Oh. Agency policy. Don't tell _anyone_ your real name. Pick a different name, one you like, and stick to it."

"Why?"

"It's a lot to take in on your first day back in the land of the living." Max said evasively, "Just take my word on this one, for now, yeah? You'll have plenty of time to figure out what you want to be called, anyway. But on the bright side, the boss likes you. He's the reason we even bothered researching the little trinket that brought you back, in the first place. So... if you're interested in working for us, once you've gotten used to the time-difference, there _is_ a standing job offer."

Ianto blinked, staring at the ceiling, "Okay... you said you know nothing about me, but now you're offering me a job. This makes perfect sense." he said in complete and deepest sarcasm.

"Well, we do know when you're from." Max said, shrugging, "And you seem like a reasonable sort of person, judging by your reactions to the situation so far."

"I was totally shocked and horrified, and then I fainted!"

"Yuhuh. Perfectly reasonable." Ianto rolled his eyes. "Besides, I think the boss wanted you even before that. Something about the way your brain was stored. I've no idea. He just muttered about irony, and then said 'make it work'. So here we are." Max grinned, "I made it work."

With that, he approached Ianto, and started to untie his wrists.

Ianto half-smirked, half-frowned, "What makes you so sure I won't attack you as soon as you do that?" Max moved around the table- he guessed it was a table, anyway- and finished untying Ianto, who slowly sat up.

"You've been perfectly reasonable so far." Max said, shrugging vaguely, "And no one who's going to attack ever asks that."

x x x

The lab space was large, filled with expensive-looking machinery, and plenty of creature comforts and personal touches. Clearly, the mad-scientist was in good favour with his boss. Ianto liked to imagine one of those James Bond style evil overlords... though he honestly doubted that was at all likely.

"Welcome to my humble abode." Max declared, showing Ianto into a small living room, which was directly attached to the lab. It was neat, cosy, and very comfortable looking. "Me casa es su casa... except the bedroom. You so completely do not want to see what I've got in there."

Ianto blinked, considering Max's blatant mad-scientist nature and immediately coming to the least appropriate conclusion possible, "Robot girlfriend?"

"No. Not a bad idea, though..." Max pondered.

"Very bad idea. _Believe_ me."

Max shrugged. "Well just stay out of there, and we'll all be happy."

Ianto nodded slowly, looking around, "This doesn't look too bad."

"Couch pulls out, you can sleep there. Not allowed a guest room on Agency property." Max said, with evident amusement, "And don't want to live too far away from my lab, so this seemed perfect... until the boss told me you weren't allowed out 'til you get your green mark."

"My what?" Ianto asked, confused.

"Oh yeah, that's right. They only started that in the forty-third century." Max said in an idle and dismissive tone, "Look at your left wrist."

Ianto immediately looked down at the back of his wrist. He saw nothing, so turned his arm over. On the inside of his wrist, right where a watch strap would easily hide it, was a short, single black line, no more than a centimetre long. It looked like a tattoo. "What is it?" he asked, frowning.

"That's your first mark." Max said, while Ianto slowly turned his hand over again, staring at it in stunned disbelief.

He was still listening, but it was a bit of a shock to suddenly realise that the old cliche phrase of knowing something 'like the back of my hand' no longer applied to him. It still hadn't completely sunk in, yet, that this was a _whole new body_.

"Everyone who has an I.D. chip- those are implanted under the marks, by the way- gets that." Max continued, whether oblivious or tactfully not commenting on Ianto's shock, it was impossible to tell. "The chip itself is proof of citizenship in civilised human systems. And, as the name tends to imply, proof of identity. They'd have to rip your arm open or off to steal it, and while there are some people who'll do that, it's much less common than identity theft in some of the more archaic settlements on the fringe worlds."

"Uh huh." Ianto said weakly, briefly registering the fact that the discussion had managed to move on to the subject of human mutilation so completely seamlessly that he probably should be bothered by it.

Then again, he used to work for Torchwood, so maybe not.

"Anyway, back to marks." Max said, dismissively, suddenly sitting down on the couch. Ianto stared for half a second, then tentatively sat down as well. "They're basically just for show, for anyone too lazy or cheap to use a chip-scanner. When a person reaches puberty, they're allowed to take a test of mental and emotional maturity. Pass it and you're legally an adult. Pass the test, you get a green mark. Turn eighteen, you get a blue mark. You need all three- and usually a decent education as well- for most good jobs, but the Agency'll take anyone with the green mark, if they see potential in you."

Ianto heard him move closer, and looked up suddenly, to see that he was now sitting right next to him.

Max pulled up the left sleeve of his shirt, just enough to show Ianto a similar mark on his own wrist. Except next to it, with about a millimetre of untouched skin between, was another line, identical except for the fact it was blue. And next to that, a green one. The three between them made a tiny square of colour.

"See?" Max asked, and Ianto nodded. He rolled down his sleeve again, and continued to talk too fast, "You'll probably get green first... they'll show in order. Can tell you something about a person... blue-first is usually an indicator of immaturity. Green-first, usually means determined or hard-working."

Ianto thought about that for a second. It occurred to him that he _had_ seen these marks before, but had never questioned them when he had seen them on Jack's wrist. Just thought it rather odd, but not significant. Black, green, then blue.

"So you're immature, then?" he asked in an offhand half-joke.

Max shrugged, not seeming too bothered by the suggestion. "I chose not to take the test until I'd got a government grant for my higher education. Can only get those for legal minors. Once you get the green mark, you're an adult and expected to be able to fend for yourself."

"Ah, so you're not immature. You're an evil genius." Ianto smiled, "I like that. Manipulating the system."

"Never said I wasn't immature." Max joked, "And I think you and I are gonna get along just fine."

Ianto frowned, "Wait a second... passing this 'test' makes you legally an adult?" he asked, looking at Max, who nodded. "In every sense?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"And you can take them from any time after you hit puberty?"

"Yeah. Your point?"

Ianto blinked, "Wow. That's a pretty big difference from my time. That's all."

"The average pass-age is about sixteen." Max said with a shrug, "I was twenty-two, but by choice. Most of the Agency employees passed young. There's a rumour that the boss himself passed at _eight_... but I really doubt it."

Ianto was absolutely shocked, "_Eight?!_"

"Probably not true. Youngest I've ever seen on the official records I really shouldn't be hacking into was eleven."

"That still seems... well, honestly, ridiculous." Ianto admitted.

Max shrugged, "Times change. A century or two before your time, it was obscene for a woman to show her _ankles_. By your time skirts can be mistaken for belts. You'll have to learn this, if you wanna stick around here- and we'd like you to- once you get your green mark."

"Why?"

"Well, it's what we do here. This Agency."

Oh fuck.

"We deal with different time zones. _Time travel_. The official name of our organisation, which officially doesn't exist, is the Temporal and Interspatial Monitoring and Enforcement Agency."

Ianto almost choked when he heard that, and he really wasn't sure if it was from horror or hilarity.

"The Time Agency."

"Someone really likes their acronyms." Ianto muttered, chuckling darkly.

Max grinned. "Yeah. We get that one a lot. Every new recruit says something along those lines, when they first hear it."

"And you want me to join, don't you?" Ianto asked weakly.

"The boss would kill for an instant no-special-training-needed expert on twentieth and early twenty-first century Earth. Yes." Max said, nodding rather curtly, "But don't worry about it just yet. You've got plenty of time to think it over before then."

"And until then, I'm legally your property." Ianto said with a frown.

"I'd prefer to think of you as- well, as a fair bit more human than that." When Ianto looked, he saw the waver in Max's eyes. He had almost said it. Ianto wouldn't begrudge him the thought, but he certainly wouldn't be the one to make such a suggestion himself.

"Well..." Ianto said, looking around, unsure. "Can I have a minute alone to think about this?"

Max nodded, "Sure. Your I.D. chip isn't standard, by the way. It's Agency issue. We can track it." He looked off to one side, seeming uncomfortable with admitting that they believed his science experiment needed tracking. "Just... so you know."

"Alright. Give me ten minutes, you'll find the bathroom deserted, covered in blood, and the tracking chip in the sink." Ianto said, with deep and bitter sarcasm. Truthfully, it wouldn't even be the first time he had ever cut his wrists... but he wasn't actually about to do it.

He was far too curious about the Time Agency that Jack had once worked for to even consider turning down their offer.

It took a moment for Max to realise he was joking, and then they both laughed.

"Go on, bathroom's through there. But if you're not out in five minutes..."

Ianto nodded, and followed Max's direction to the bathroom. It wasn't _that_ different from what he was used to. It had a toilet and a sink and a shower, and there _was_ enough room to swing that poor, innocent, metaphorical cat. Not one of those cramped little boxes he had seen in movies that guessed at what the future would be like.

Actually, the toilet didn't look that different from one of those demented computerised things Ianto had read about, that had already existed in Japan in his own time.

There were even actual towels, not those evil things found in twenty-first century public toilets, which were supposed to dry your hands with air, and _never_ did a proper job of it.

And this was what he was looking for. Over the sink. A mirror.

He closed his eyes and braced himself, before stepping in front of it. Then when he finally dared open his eyes and look, even knowing he would see a different face, he was still shocked by it.

He looked a lot younger. Probably about sixteen or seventeen. His eyes were darker, too... brown instead of grey. Lighter hair colour. And a lot of his facial features did rather resemble Max's. Not a clone, but there were enough similarities to make Ianto suspect that the mad-scientist had arranged for his own DNA to be used in the creation of this body.

Certainly added to the 'like a son to me' feel that he seemed to have for this strange experiment. Even if Max didn't look much older than Ianto had been... last time he remembered, in the twenty-first century.

Last time he remembered.

It wasn't even as if he had died and somehow been brought back, like Jack. No, he had accidentally activated some alien technology that had basically hit a save-button for his brain. His last memories weren't of anything life-threatening or dangerous.

No, in fact, they were of having sex with Jack.

He smiled faintly at those memories. Oh, yes... that had been a fun evening. But then the painful realisation hit him that Jack- _his_ Jack- probably thought he was long-dead now. And this place- the Time Agency- was somewhere _his_ Jack would avoid like the plague. Because it would remind him of- or worse, get him involved with- his past.

A sharp rapping on the door. "Five minutes already? Aww, and I nearly found a window to pry open." he joked, loudly enough- he hoped- for Max to hear him.

In fact, there was nothing even vaguely resembling a window in any of the rooms that he had seen so far. He was beginning to wonder if they were actually underground.

The door opened, and Max stood there, looking both amused and slightly concerned. "I can only imagine what it feels like to suddenly wake up in a completely new body... must be one hell of a mind-fuck."

"No, you think?" Ianto joked weakly, giving the mirror one more sceptical glance, before following his new- what? Friend? Jailor? Pseudo-mad-scientist-parent-type-person?- out into the other room again.

"Thought of a name yet?" Max asked conversationally.

"Not really."

It was so difficult to think about something that seemed so trivial, right now. There was still so much to take in.

"That's okay, you'll figure something out." Max dismissed, entirely unconcerned, "You should probably get some sleep. I'll get you those texts in the morning."

x x x

The next morning, Ianto woke up on what had to be the most comfortable couch in the universe. Yes, it had pulled out into a bed, but that did not usually make any couch comfortable. This one was.

He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It was quiet, but he could hear an eerie electric humming from the next room. The lab. He decided that lab was one of those things best not to think about too much. He doubted half the things in it had any practical application for good. Only evil.

Yes, he had been brought back to life in there, but that didn't necessarily make it a good place. It was, honestly, bloody creepy.

He sat up and looked around, spotting what looked like a very slim book sitting on the table next to him. That hadn't been there last night, he was sure of it. It was bright yellow, with a black bar across it containing the title '_A Dummies Guide To The Standardised Human Maturity Test_'.

The Dummies Guide books were still around in the fifty-first century. Ianto found that deeply amusing.

He picked it up, finding no pages... just a seam, like a DVD case. He opened it, and it beeped cheerfully as a screen inside lit up. He blinked, only mildly surprised and impressed by just how compact the device was. Computerised books. Made sense... in fact it seemed much more reasonable than any of the sci-fi alternatives, like datapads and holodecks.

The screen that had appeared almost instantly- no loading time, the wonders of future technology!- was a contents page. It looked like a modest front page of a website, with the same title as its cover across the top like a banner, and a list of chapters. Judging by the list and page-numbers, if this had been a real book he guessed that it would probably have been about the size of the original Dummies Guide books he had seen in his own time.

Ianto took an educated guess at just how this book worked, and touched the words '_Chapter 1: What _ is_ The SHM Test?_' lightly with one finger. The touch-screen theory was instantly proved correct, as the page changed to show this chapter as its header, while the rest of the screen filled with text.

'_As per the Youth Rights Act of 4268, Earth Empire law states that any human capable of understanding the importance and consequences of their own actions is considered responsible for these actions. The Standardised Human Maturity Test was established in May 4269, as a means of determining whether or not an individual fully understands these principles. Those who pass this test are legally recognised as adults, including all the rights and responsibilities entailed therein._

_**Myth**: When you pass your test, you're out on your own in the real world._  
_**Fact**: It is generally assumed that any individual under the age of eighteen, who has successfully passed this test, is still entitled to all parental support they may require. However, parents or guardians are no longer to be held accountable for the individual's actions, either legally or socially._

_**Myth**: Anyone who has passed their test must be sexually active._  
_**Fact**: Most individuals who pass this test do so for their own personal and political freedom. Everyone matures at a different rate, and just because some individuals may become sexually active at a younger age does not mean that one should assume everyone who is legally an adult is prepared for such behaviour._

_**Myth**: Any trained ape could pass the test, and therefore if you fail you must be a complete moron._  
_**Fact**: The test is designed and updated to include not only sections on intelligence and understanding of the consequences to one's own actions, but also basic knowledge of modern society and law. It does require studying, and none of the genetically enhanced trained apes to which officials have attempted to administer the test have yet passed._'

Well that certainly was an interesting law.

Ianto had almost laughed out loud at the 'youth rights act' part. It seemed so ludicrous. But then he thought back to when he had been a teenager... everything had seemed so unfair, because he hadn't really been given that much choice in the way his own life was run. The more he thought about this, the more sense it really made.

x x x

He was still reading the 'book', when he heard the door open, and looked up to see Max wander in, carrying something that smelled _very_ good.

"Hey, how's the studying going?" Max asked jokingly. Ianto just looked up at him with one raised eyebrow, silently asking if he really expected that question to be dignified with a response. Apparently not, because Max continued, "I got lunch. First meal in three thousand years. You must be starving."

Ianto immediately set the book down, and sat up more attentively. Yes, now that he thought about it, he was famished.

"Wasn't sure what you liked- and in theory, new body equals new sense of taste anyway- so I figured I'd just get something I _know_ you'll not have tried before." Max set the boxes he was carrying down on the table, and pushed one towards Ianto, who warily opened it.

At a glance, it _looked_ like Chinese takeout... but it smelled completely different. He honestly couldn't think of anything to compare that scent to, only that it was incredibly appetising. "What is it?" he asked warily.

"Veggie stir-fry." Max said with a shrug, "Although, both the vegetables and the spices are found exclusively in the Andromedan colonies. Trust me, it's good." While he was speaking, Max had opened his own food, and now he started eating.

Ianto hesitated, slightly stunned by this sudden influx of information. Colonies in another _galaxy_. He really hadn't expected that.

Probably should have... but hadn't.

"You okay?" Max asked, "I know some people are picky about what they eat, but I'm also pretty sure no humans were true carnivores until the mid-twenty-sixth century." Ianto gave him a blatantly shocked look for that oh-so-idle and offhand remark. "Figured vegetables were a safe bet?"

"Oh... yes, I'm fine." Ianto said quickly, before warily taking a bite of this strange new food. It didn't taste quite as good as it smelled, but it was still good. Assuming it wasn't poisoned. He wouldn't put that past the Time Agency, normally... but right now he didn't think it was all that likely.

Why raise someone from the dead just to poison them the next day?

No, he actually could think of a couple of reasons... and while they might all involve Jack and his surprisingly extensive collection of enemies, it still made him uncomfortable to contemplate that.

x x x

Over the next few days, Ianto was looked after relatively well. While regular meals and a comfortable place to sleep did not detract from the knowledge that he may as well be a prisoner... if he ignored the mild sense of claustrophobia, he could manage to look at it as the job opportunity it really was.

Torchwood can really jade your soul, he thought, if he was able to think that way so easily.

His only company was Max, who while friendly enough was very easily distracted. And he seemed to give off the strong vibe that if he didn't work here he'd be living in his mother's basement... with all the same evil-genius-mad-scientist experiments going on, most probably at a severely reduced budget and therefore liable to blow up said basement.

Ianto was all too happy to stay out of the lab, and instead spent his time reading up on the changes that had happened in the last three thousand years.

It was a lot to take in.

The first genuinely friendly contact with aliens had occurred in 2157... but then one random and relatively insignificant human bodyguard, working for the ambassador, unwittingly said something inappropriate about the alien consul's daughter, at the celebratory gala.

Humanity had made its first impression on the galaxy... as bad dinner guests.

After a two year war in which thousands of lives were lost on both sides, a lone member of another alien race stepped in, encouraged the offending human to apologise, and peace to be declared.

Several of the older species in the four galaxies that humanity had explored refused to communicate with Earth and her Empire, but did maintain peaceful- if incredibly strict- neutral zones and borders. Apparently the reason for this was a human tendency for massive expansion, leading to overpopulated worlds... or, in the aliens' (roughly translated) words: 'a literal plague upon the universe'.

At least they weren't pro-active about dealing with the 'problem'.

Humanity itself had changed surprisingly little. Considering he knew Jack (very well), he had already been made well aware of one of the biggest improvements.

Genetic engineering had altered the human immune system drastically, making it practically impossible to catch or carry any serious diseases. Well, that existed in this time at least. Jack had once remarked casually that he had been given immunisation shots by the Time Agency, for a wide range of extinct diseases, including smallpox, the black plague... and malaria, which had sparked an hour-long argument over whether or not that one was extinct in the twenty-first century.

That argument had ended on Wikipedia... and then on Owen's desk.

There was something maliciously amusing, to Ianto, about the fact Owen never found out about the many, many times that sort of thing had happened to his desk.

Now, however, Ianto learned that genetic engineering had been used for more than just immunology. Most hereditary illnesses had been isolated and written out of the gene pool over the last three thousand years. It was a much longer and more arduous process than one might imagine, because the treatments were entirely at the discretion of prospective parents who carried these genes, and opinions on the definition of 'illness' varied in several cases.

Recent laws- and by recent, that meant sometime in the fifty-first century- regarding what was referred to as 'crimes against genetics' did make it illegal to knowingly pass on defective genes. But this was still a new concept, and as with all these things it had its own band of vehement protestors to picket against it.

Oddly enough, the innate vanity of humans had failed to get dragged into the picture, and nobody had even bothered to _try_ to isolate an 'ugly gene'. Yet.

Crimes against genetics. That one had managed to shock him. Not for the idea that you could be punished for passing on bad genes when the technology existed to prevent it. Thinking about some of the more deadly and debilitating hereditary conditions, it made perfect sense. No, it was the older (thirty-eighth century) elements of this collection of laws.

It was illegal to breed with certain species of aliens, because the hybrids were, apparently, severely disadvantaged and prone to a whole list of life-long illnesses that it was considered immoral to inflict upon a child. That wasn't too bad... and some of the accompanying pictures of these aliens made him wonder why any human would have wanted to have sex with them in the first place.

No, what had shocked him was the fact they had also felt the need to add a comment on inbreeding with family members.

Asking Max about it had resulted in a blank look. Two minutes of explaining how wrong it was that anyone would want to have sex with someone they were related to in the first place, and Max started laughing at him.

"It's the fifty-first century!" Max crowed, "Anything goes... as long as everyone involved can and does consent."

"That's disgusting."

"If that's the social standard in your time... or you just had fugly relatives. Sure, whatever. Everyone has their own tastes- and as far as I'm aware not many people are ever really into someone they've spent their whole childhood with, anyway- but these days nobody judges." Max shrugged dismissively, "Each to their own. Honestly, as long as nobody but me touches my personal computer, I don't care either way."

x x x


	3. We're Your Arch-Nemesises-ses

x x x

**Chapter 3: "We're Your Arch-Nemesises...ses."**

x x x

It had been about a week since Ianto had been raised from the dead, and Max had told him that the 'boss' had arranged for him to take this 'Standardised Human Maturity' test tomorrow. He was fairly sure he had already learned everything he could from the books he had been given.

Max had actually told him that the boss expected all Agents to be capable of adapting to new situations quickly, and if he failed to rise to the challenge of a new time and a strange location- by passing this official test- then the Agency didn't even want him. Whether it was intended as such, or not, this felt very much like a threat, when he really thought about it. Without the Agency's support he would be entirely alone in this strange new time and world, with no financial means or viable qualifications.

He was re-reading the section of the Dummies' Guide on contemporary culture, to be sure he hadn't missed anything, when he heard a crashing sound from the lab.

"Rak, you fucking moron!" an unfamiliar, male voice yelled, "Watch it! Or do you want to blow yourself up?"

"Why'd you have to say 'up', huh Warr?" another man grumbled. "Ow!"

"Shut up. It's got to be around here somewhere." the first man- Warr?- said darkly, "_Don't_. Touch. Anything."

Ianto set the book down and slowly- silently, after so many long nights of practice stalking Weevils- approached the door. He peered out to see the two men snooping around the lab.

The leader of these two was tall and fit, with black hair in a ponytail, and the other was shorter and kind of weaselish, skulking suspiciously as he followed his... judging by the conversation, 'friend' would really be pushing it. They both wore black, looking rather like it was a uniform.

A uniform which would not have looked at all out of place on an Imperial officer in Star Wars.

There was no way of calling Max, who had said he wouldn't be back for another few hours yet. Work. Mission briefing. Ianto was actually surprised he had been told _that_ much about it. His eyes now drifted to the broken machine on the floor, and he was eternally grateful to see that it was only a recording device for a long-abandoned experiment, and not something that could kill them all.

There _were_ apparently such things in this lab. It made Q from the James Bond movies look like a kid with a play-dough set. Really.

"Ah ha!" Warr crowed victoriously, and Ianto looked back to see that this was- as he had suspected- the taller of the two. Unfortunately, he was coming right this way. The door was shoved open into Ianto's face, and before he could recover from that, Warr had grabbed his arms, turned him around, and twisted them painfully up behind his back.

He kicked and struggled, but quickly came to the conclusion that he was no match for this man, even without the element of surprise being against him.

"It's a he." Rak announced, with the failed tone of one attempting to impart great wisdom.

Ianto tried to struggle again, but this was once more proved to be entirely pointless. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, trying to sound angry rather than afraid.

"We heard that Max was making something humanoid down here." Warr all-but purred in his ear. Ianto recognised that tone, and it sent shivers down his spine. It was exactly the same tone that Jack always used when he wanted to intimidate and still sound seductive at the same time.

This man most definitely was not Jack... but he must be a Time Agent, and it made Ianto feel sick to think that it was just an act that they all learned, instead of Jack's own natural charm.

"Let me go." Ianto said weakly, "Max will be back any minute, and when he finds out you broke one of his projects-"

"He won't be back for ages." Rak interrupted, laughing. It was a bit too high-pitched to sound right. "And the boss likes us better, anyway." he added, as if this would justify any wrong they could possibly commit against a fellow employee.

"If Max will insist on making his very own near-human fucktoy, and then won't share... he shouldn't be surprised if we take what we want, instead." Warr said in a far-too-casual and conversational tone. "And the boss likes _me_ better, Rak. You're just ballast on the time-jumps."

It took a few seconds for what Warr had just said to sink into Ianto's mind... and by that time the older man had pulled him closer, and kissed his neck roughly.

"No!" Ianto shouted, struggling in spite of the rational knowledge that this was entirely futile, "No! I'm not a-" He flinched when Warr bit him, and then cringed at the word he was about to say, "I'm not a... a fucktoy." he said in disgust.

"Why else would that lunatic make a pretty-boy like you?" Rak snorted, but Warr had stopped kissing him now. Just held him in place as if he was waiting for an answer to that as well.

"I- I think he wanted a son." Ianto answered weakly.

"Bullshit!" Rak declared.

But all of a sudden, Warr let go of his right arm, and turned him around sharply. It was very disconcerting to suddenly be so noticeably weaker and shorter than he had been back in the twenty-first century, that this man could practically throw him around like a rag doll without any trouble. Seventeen again really sucked.

And then he saw that Warr was looking at his left wrist. "Kid's half-branded, Rak."

"Wha-?" Rak gaped.

It was clear to Ianto that this must be a slang term for the black mark on his arm. He assumed, therefore, that the matching term for having the green mark as well would probably be simply 'branded'. Somehow, the blue one didn't seem that significant, when you really thought about it.

After a moment's pause, Rak demanded, "So who cares?"

"Well if you want to get fired, mind-wiped, and castrated, go ahead and jump the kid." Warr said, almost gently releasing Ianto's left wrist, now. "But good luck trying. You couldn't pin down a pekinese without my help, and you know it."

Ianto immediately backed away from both of them, not sure if they were still going to try something in spite of the fact that Warr had let him go.

He then promptly wondered what the fixation on dogs was in this century. He distinctly remembered John Hart eyeing up a poodle.

It seemed that the prospect of this century's punishment for rape (castration might be an exaggeration, but the 'treatment' would still make it impossible for the criminal to ever get an erection again, and thus impossible for them to repeat the offence) was enough to put them off... although Ianto had no idea how they had drawn the distinction.

He _wasn't_ a robot, and those were the only 'near-human' beings with no legal rights, according to what he had read. Too many robot/AI apocalypse movies for people to dare risk giving machines enough free will to ever even ask for rights.

Warr's entire demeanour seemed to have softened, the instant he laid eyes upon that tiny mark on Ianto's arm. Now he was acting almost friendly. "So are the rumours that Max wrote your brain on a computer true?"

"Who said that?" Ianto asked, frowning.

Warr shrugged, "Everyone's been wondering, for over a year now."

"Rumours tend to escalate when nobody tells the truth." Ianto pointed out coldly, folding his arms defensively as he said it.

Warr shrugged and nodded, "I'm Warren Stone, by the way." He held out a hand to Ianto, who merely stared at it as if he must be a madman for even thinking he would accept it. Warr shrugged, as if this reaction wasn't at all offensive. "And this waste of oxygen here is Gerak."

Ianto frowned, "I think you should both leave now." he said pointedly.

"Look." Warren began, "I think we got off on the wrong foot, here."

"Oh, you think?" Ianto asked, affronted at how very casually this man was dismissing the whole incident, "You were going to _rape_ me!"

Warren shrugged, "An AI isn't really sentient... even if some crackpot does put it in a flesh-and-blood body."

Ianto bristled even more, at this. He didn't feel like explaining the truth to these two- honestly, he got the feeling that the truth in this situation was a terrible and dangerous thing to be avoided at all costs- and he wanted them gone as quickly as possible, "Well your boss seems to think I count as human enough to want to hire me without an interview, as soon as I earn my green mark."

Shocked stares. Apparently Ianto had guessed right, and this really was a rare honour. Possibly unprecedented. They were both completely dumbstruck.

After a moment, Warren was the one to regain his composure, and he oh-so-casually suggested, "Well once you are branded, you should reconsider my offer."

"I don't recall any offer." Ianto growled, "Only a threat."

Warren shrugged dismissively, and it took all of Ianto's self-control not to lash out and hit him. He knew it wouldn't do any good in the long run.

He really wished he had a gun. He wouldn't deliberately miss the kill-shot on this man, like he did for Owen.

"If you change your mind..." Warren said, with a casual attempt at a seductive tone.

"Not if you were the last human in the universe." Ianto hissed. '_And believe me._' he thought darkly, '_Even accounting for time-travel and unforeseen apocalypses... you won't be._'

The complete and utter rejection didn't seem to faze Warren in the slightest. Rak, on the other hand, looked pretty angry about it, "You're not gonna take that sort of shit from some science experiment that's been playing with a tattoo-gun, are you, Warr?"

"Oh, Rak." Warren said in a despairing tone, "Please shut up before I rip your vocal chords out through your nose." He grabbed his 'friend' by the collar, and dragged him to the door. "Nice meeting you, newbie."

"Go to hell." Ianto sniped back. It was meant as a genuine and spiteful insult, but the Time Agent just grinned and seemed to take it as a playful joke... much the same way that Ianto got the feeling the threat to Rak's ability to speak was probably a joke.

"See you there, darlin'."

And with that, they were gone.

x x x

Only a few minutes had passed, when Ianto decided to leave the lab.

Max wasn't due back for a few hours, but Ianto felt that he deserved to know what had happened. He honestly wasn't sure if Max would be concerned for his welfare, or just upset at the broken machinery... but either way, Ianto was going to go stir-crazy if he had to wait now, after what had just happened.

He very slowly and cautiously peered out the door, and was grateful to find an empty, soulless grey corridor.

The lab was at the very end of this corridor, directly opposite another set of closed doors. To the right, the corridor went on for what looked like just the length of the lab and no more, before turning right again. A quick look around revealed no evidence of any surveillance technology that Ianto could recognise.

That didn't mean no one was watching him. He highly doubted that in over three thousand years absolutely no advances had been made in the field of hidden cameras.

He quickly followed the corridor, and peered around the corner, half-expecting to find heavily armed security guards. Max had made dire warnings about security guards, the first day he had woken up in the lab. As he had expected, around the corner was what looked like a security desk, right next to doors distinctly reminiscent of an elevator.

The man at this desk, however, did not look at all threatening.

He was an older man, with grey hair, a handlebar moustache, and an expression of terminal boredom as he stared blankly at a computer screen in front of him, his chin rested on the heel of his left hand. While he wore the same style of uniform as the two Agents Ianto had just met, his was grey and well-worn.

He didn't look up as Ianto cautiously emerged from around the corner, and began to walk towards the desk.

However, when Ianto was about halfway from the corner to the desk, the man spoke. Not looking away from his computer screen. "You know you're not authorised to leave the lab unsupervised, there, son."

Ianto froze, and the man looked up at him. His eyes were keen and intelligent. Dark coloured, but still sparkling like they belonged to a teenager.

"You might want to turn around and go back, now." His accent sounded like he was fresh out of a Western, too.

Ianto frowned, "I'm sorry, but I need to speak to Max." he said warily.

The man smiled crookedly, but not unkindly, "Suppose I could manage that. Have a seat." He gestured to a rather uncomfortable-looking chair near the desk.

Ianto obeyed promptly, moving around the desk to sit down. As he did so, he saw that the man was holding a gun under the desk, steadily aimed at him. It was an old-fashioned gun, even in Ianto's mind. Classic Smith and Weston. Casually, as if he had used that weapon all his life, the man put it away in a hip-holster... and when he saw Ianto watching him, he grinned more broadly.

"Name's Squire." he said with a nod, "Used to be a favourite around here, for American frontier missions in the nineteenth century... before that era stopped setting off the temporal displacement alarms. Like to keep in practice, in case anything new comes up."

Ianto couldn't help but grin at this. The man was a perfect Western cliche, and he was talking about temporal displacement. It was bizarre, and brilliant at the same time.

"So every Agent has a specialized time they work in?" he asked, unable to help himself.

"Not always." Squire said, shaking his head, "We all have our special talents, mine just seems to be blending in right among them thar varmints o' the Old West. Meanwhile, someone has to get stuck with guard duty." He was grinning. It was meant to be a joke.

And thank goodness for that, because Ianto couldn't _not_ laugh. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing. You're just so good at that accent."

Squire shrugged, "I don't mind. Wild West has been popular for centuries. I've worked with most of the Agents here, on one job or another. They request it." He paused, giving Ianto a curious and critical look, "Your accent's not one I can place, though."

That felt a bit like a punch to the stomach. He had always been proud of his heritage, and Welsh was a very distinctive accent. For it not to be recognised in this century must mean that it had faded away over time. He wondered if Wales still even existed, or if it had been assimilated into another country.

The uncomfortable silence only lasted a moment, before Squire pressed a button on the security desk, and spoke in an amicably bored voice that, if it weren't for the old western accent, wouldn't have sounded at all out of place over a supermarket tannoy. "Maxwell Powers, contact Sub-3 security. Yesterday, please."

"That's weird." Ianto muttered, "Shouldn't we have heard that, or something?"

"Directional speakers, target him through his I.D. chip." Squire answered, as if it should have been obvious.

Ianto blinked, taking a few seconds to realise what he should have already accepted. Experimental new technology in the twenty-first century should probably consider itself lucky to still be a casual everyday thing in use in the fifty-first century, instead of completely outdated.

"What is it now?" Max's voice asked over the comms system. It completely failed to surprise Ianto that he spoke with the resigned tone of one who had to deal with security regularly, for one reason or another. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Ianto wasn't sure how Max expected anyone to _see_ that he was busy... then again, he couldn't see the computer screen from here, so it was entirely possible that the security cameras did cover wherever he was in the building, right now.

"Your friend down here wants to talk to you." Squire answered, casually. "And I've said it before, nobody needs you to narrate the mission summaries you hand out, up there. We're all completely literate."

"Hmph. Nobody bothers to read them, if I don't." Max's voice muttered sulkily. A brief pause, then, "I'll be down in a minute."

Squire clicked off the comms system, and silence reigned for all of five seconds, before Ianto asked him, "Is there any other way down here? Besides past you?"

"Now why would I tell you that, if there was?" Squire asked him, amused.

"Because if there isn't, then you must have let those other two Agents down into the lab." Ianto said pointedly.

That got him. He had frozen for a moment, before immediately checking the computer for something, not bothering to speak now. Finally, he muttered under his breath, "Sneaky little..." He looked up at Ianto, asking, "This is why you wanted to talk to Max? Y'know we don't have cameras in his lab, so there's no evidence of whatever they did."

"They broke one of his machines. I don't _think_ it was anything dangerous." Ianto said bluntly, deciding that while he had taken an instant liking to this man, he certainly wasn't going to tell him everything. He wasn't even sure, yet, if he would tell Max that the two Agents had been after him.

Squire shuddered in evident horror, "Max's machines. Broken. I'll warn the fire department." he said, seeming perfectly serious, as he pressed some more buttons at his desk.

"Did I hear that right?" Max asked, stepping out of what Ianto suddenly decided to mentally label as the Stealth-Elevator. Neither the lift itself, nor its doors had made a sound... yet looking past Max, it definitely had to be an elevator of some kind.

Future technology, he assumed, and pretended he thought it was normal.

"Two men broke into the lab." Ianto said, immediately turning to face Max, "They said their names were-"

"Warren and Gerak." Squire said, sounding resigned, "This is the fifth time I'll have to increase security on the classified levels, because of them."

Time to change the locks. Ianto couldn't help but be reminded of the time Beth had broken out of the Torchwood cryofreeze, and if it weren't for the reason those two were down in the lab in the first place, he might have smiled at this thought.

"Terminally nosey, the pair of them." Squire added.

Max snorted derisively, shaking his head, "Let's hope one day they prove that description to be perfectly accurate."

"So we all hate Warren and Gerak?" Ianto asked hopefully.

"They're just an inconvenience to me." Squire answered, idly, "No reason to hate them."

"I despise every atom of their existence to the ninth phasic plane of reality." Ianto stared blankly at this obscure reference, and it seemed Max noticed, because he shrugged dismissively, "That's science-talk for hell."

"Someone scientifically proved the existence of hell?" Ianto asked, highly amused at the thought.

"Something close enough, at any rate." Max said, turning to lead the way down to the lab, "Come on, then. Let's see whether or not we're all going to die from their interfering."

Ianto followed, glancing back to wave at Squire, who nodded politely before he rounded the corner.

"Phasic planes are like alternate realities... except they come in layers." Max explained as they entered the lab. He took one cursory glance at the broken machinery, then stepped past it, utterly unconcerned.

Clearly they weren't all going to die, after all. Good to know.

"We're somewhere in the middle. The ninth one is often referred to as the Void. Above that you've got the Vortex, Rift, Wormhole Events, Material Plane, Astral, Transcendental, Ethereal, and Eternal. None of them are really heaven or hell, as far as any official religion is concerned. We know they're all there, but we've only succeeded in mapping the Rift and Astral planes. I'm actually working on technology to use the Vortex to time-travel. In theory, it would be a lot more stable than the Rift."

'_Are we talking about the same Rift, here?_' Ianto wondered.

He guessed they might be, as Tosh's calculations on the Rift had been used in relation to John Hart's time travel device. Come to think of it, while Hart had used the Rift to travel in time, Jack called his device a Vortex manipulator. Max might just be on to a major scientific breakthrough here.

"So how does it work?" Ianto asked, "The time travel?"

"Oh... well it's all very technical." Max said vaguely, "But in layman's terms..." He picked three pieces of fine paper from a bench, and held one up. "Imagine this two-dimensional object represents all four dimensions of space and time in the material plane." He folded the paper loosely over, so that two points were touching, "This is your average wormhole. Two points in space-time fold over to touch each other, allowing you to travel between them. Very rare, very unstable, and in theory it would take more power than a trillion suns to artificially generate one."

"Okay..." Ianto said warily. That was almost precisely the (purely theoretical, back then) wormhole concept that scientists in the twenty-first century said was the only way anyone could ever be able to time-travel.

Max picked up the second bit of paper and crumpled it up loosely, "This is what the same four dimensions look like in the Rift. Completely chaotic, but some parts are touching, and through mapping the Rift itself, carefully planned jumps can take you through it from one of these connecting points to another."

Ianto nodded, paying very careful attention.

Max now took the third piece of paper, dunked it into some water and squished it really hard into a tiny little lump. "This is the same thing, in the Vortex. Every point touches every other point, and through it instantaneous travel to and from anywhere and anywhen you could ever want is theoretically possible."

"And the Void?" Ianto asked, seeing a pattern of the different planes getting smaller. Max smirked darkly, clearly imagining Warren and Gerak being banished to this plane.

"Throw the piece of paper in a black hole... then pray you never go there."

x x x

Max had spent the last hour, first clearing up after the damage, then searching for further evidence of the intruders.

Ianto had spent the whole time sitting on one of the less precarious lab stools, watching him very carefully. He was waiting to see how long it took for Max to ask if he was okay. Perhaps it was obvious that he was unharmed, but since when did it hurt to ask? Especially if you think you care about the person.

Finally, "They didn't take anything." Max turned to him and asked, "Was this all they broke?" indicating the place where the broken machinery had once belonged.

Ianto frowned, wondering exactly how much to tell him. He settled on answering precisely what had been asked, and no more. If Max asked the right questions, he'd get the whole story. "Yes."

Max gave him a suspicious look. So he wasn't completely oblivious, then. Good. "Do you have any idea why they were down here?"

Ianto nodded.

"And...?"

"They were looking for me."

"What?" Max demanded, clearly surprised, "How did they even know about you?"

"Apparently there've been rumours going around for over a year." Ianto said, scowling, "They thought you wrote my mind on a computer."

Max rolled his eyes, seemingly exasperated, "Sheesh, you write one near-sentient piece of programming and everyone assumes you want to make an army of them."

Ianto blinked at that, "You actually did write a brain on a computer?"

"Well... yes. Why do you think I don't want anyone to touch my personal computer? The AI is very temperamental, and she completely freezes up when anyone but me so much as touches the keyboard."

"This AI's your girlfriend, isn't she?" Ianto asked bluntly.

"Oh, I get this one all the time as well." Max said, grinning, "Don't worry. I've seen all the movies. I know how to be paranoid. She's completely separated and shielded from the Internet, and the Agency mainframe. Incapable of any communication outside the basic user-interface. Not to mention, like all good AIs, she's programmed to love her creator and not even understand the concept of free-will. No attempted world domination for _her_."

"That's your job." Ianto said in a perfect deadpan.

Max did a double-take, then laughed, "I really like you, y'know."

Ianto smiled weakly, before looking away. He had been fine joking with Max about world domination... but the second real emotion was dragged into the conversation he didn't want to think about it.

"This is Warren we're talking about... so I can guess what he probably thought." Max said, also turning away and pretending to fine-tune one of his machines. "You okay?"

"He didn't hurt me." Ianto said bluntly. He still felt quite defensive about the whole thing. "Even tried to pretend to be friendly, after he saw the mark on my arm."

"Everyone has a line they won't cross." Max said with a slight frown, and a hint of a calculating tone in his voice, "But I honestly thought Warren was the exception to that rule, until now."

x x x


	4. Of All The Friends I've Had

x x x

**Chapter 4: "Of All The Friends I've Had... You're The First."**

x x x

The future was seriously messed up. The only way Ianto could cope with it was to try to remain detached and objective. All the new information he had read, and even what had happened the previous day... it was so much easier to think of it as something unreal.

A dream, a story... a game.

A very real game.

He had won, yesterday. Warren might have threatened him, but he hadn't actually been harmed, and that was what counted.

Max woke him early, the next morning, so that he could make it to the testing facility across town in time for his scheduled appointment. He just went along with it, still quite shocked from what had happened the previous day, but eager to see the world outside this basement that was beginning to feel increasingly like a prison to him.

Max had asked again, as they ate breakfast together, if he was okay. He said was fine. He got the feeling that Max knew this was a lie, but since no interrogation was forthcoming, it didn't much matter what Max thought.

He had been given new clothes. A rather plain shirt and pants... and actual _shoes_, which in itself was a vast improvement. In comparison to his previous options here, it felt so very formal. Almost like getting ready for a hearing or trial, for a crime he hadn't committed.

"It's time to go." Max called from the lab, "You'd better be-"

Ianto stepped out, fully dressed, and as neat and presentable as ever.

"Ready... yeah, okay you're ready. Let's go."

Ianto followed as he led the way out of the lab, "I'm good at timekeeping."

"That's always a plus, when the Agency's hiring." Max said, with a forced grin, "Thankfully not a requirement. I forget what day of the week it is, sometimes."

They reached the elevator, and Squire nodded to them as they passed, "Good luck today, son."

Ianto was just a bit too nervous to voice his answer, but still managed to nod in response, all the same.

As soon as the doors closed behind them, Max asked, "Hope you've thought of a new name by now. You'll need it for the test today."

"It's difficult to leave the past behind." Ianto said carefully, frowning. Yes, he had thought of a name, but that didn't make it any easier. "Even if I did die and get resurrected three millennia later."

"Yeah. Well, technically you're a new man, now." Max said with a shrug, "I'd not call it resurrection... more like scientifically assisted reincarnation. Some people still believe in that shit, y'know. One woman I worked with, on the archaeological team that was researching where we found your brain... swore blind she was once Cleopatra."

And thus they were both laughing when the doors slid silently open to reveal a large atrium that was at least two stories tall. It honestly wasn't that spectacular or new to Ianto, who had seen both bigger and better-looking in his own century. Still, it was definitely designed to be impressive.

"The Agency is entirely self-contained within this building. There's enough of us that we could form a fully functional community on our own." Max explained, gesturing vaguely upwards, "Living quarters are on the upper levels, but once you pass the test you're free to get your own place if you prefer. We've got offices, meeting rooms, training rooms, even entertainment and a restaurant. You name it, we probably have it."

"And of course, the top-secret research facility underground." Ianto joked darkly, "No evil organisation is truly whole without one."

"Exactly!" Max laughed.

They stepped outside into the bright sunlight, and onto what looked to Ianto like an eerily clean but otherwise surprisingly normal street.

A moment later he began to notice that the people weren't all human. The majority were... but the aliens really did stand out.

Nearest to them was a small group of blue-skinned humanoid women, with odd ridges on their heads instead of hair, and a strangely attractive air about them, chatting to each other in an entirely unfamiliar and rather musical language. At least, they sure looked female in those tight tops.

And you know you've spent too much time at Torchwood when you have to wonder about that, Ianto thought... but after once witnessing Janet trying to hump Owen, he had learned not to make assumptions.

Green was also a common skin-colour... and the more he thought about it, they all looked to be the same race. Reptilian, with very large eyes and sharp claws.

Max nudged him in the ribs, "It's rude to stare."

Ianto immediately turned to see that he was standing next to what looked like an old-fashioned black taxi... except it wasn't touching the ground. And it had no visible wheels.

Hover cars actually existed!

He hadn't expected that one, somehow. Perhaps because of the fact that he had lived through at least half a dozen dates in his own time, where various older movies had said such things should exist, but in reality they hadn't.

"For the Thessians, just _thinking _ they're pretty is a come-on... nevermind saying hello." Max continued, as if the hover-taxi was not at all unusual, "And the Silurians tend to take offence if you gape at them. Especially the big... muscley... scary-clawy males." he added nervously, pointedly avoiding looking at one especially dangerous-looking green-skinned alien as it passed. Then he shook his head and muttered, "I was raised on an all-human colony... and since I moved here I have never got used to the Silurians."

Ianto laughed to cover up his fear at the thought of being torn apart by an alien lizard, just for looking at it funny.

Also, at the idea that just thinking could be interpreted as a come-on. So the Thessians must be telepathic. He assumed, from the fact that he hadn't seen any other aliens besides the scary green ones, that the pretty blue ones must be Thessians.

Max held the taxi door open, and Ianto climbed in first. Once they were both settled, it took off. Ianto couldn't help but watch out the window, as they flew through what looked like clearly defined lanes of traffic.

After a moment, Max finally decided he'd had long enough to marvel at the technology, and spoke up, "Name?"

Ianto turned to look at him, slightly startled, but then answered, "Michael Harper."

It was a combination. The first name had belonged to his best friend (read; 'only friend') at school. The surname was that of his favourite and least-vicious enemy. Both had already been dead before Ianto's last memory of the twenty-first century.

Max nodded, "Nice. Sounds good, and it's obscure, so even if you did steal it- and most of us do- I wouldn't know. I've heard the most ridiculous names working where I work, y'know. I swear, one guy tried to call himself Hugh Jass." Even though Max so very carefully emphasised the two separate parts of that name, there was no mistaking what it sounded like. "Then again, if you had picked the surname Hunt..."

The sudden, random, and entirely inappropriate humour made Ianto snort with laughter. He controlled himself quickly, however. He was usually more restrained than this... but that had been _really_ funny.

"And then there's the really unoriginal." Max continued, "You're not allowed to take any famous people's names, and it's an automatic disqualification from joining at all if you even suggest calling yourself 'John Smith'. Most popular Earth name of all time, and you'd be amazed how many people wouldn't believe it if you said that was really your name."

The taxi turned smoothly out of the traffic lane and down to the ground, before stopping outside a much smaller, very plain and efficient-looking old stone building, weathered with age but still well cared-for. Much less impressive than the Agency building, and yet somehow holding an air of authority. It was an important official building, you could just tell.

"Here we are." Max cheered. As they stepped out of the taxi, Ianto glanced back the way they had come, and saw the Agency building on the skyline. A very quick journey, considering the distance... and the traffic, even in the sky!

Max led the way inside, and signed him in for the test. As his legal guardian unless and until he passed said test, it was expected that Ianto be supervised like a child. Rather degrading, but he understood the logic here.

There were about a dozen other applicants due to take the test today, as well. They were all teenagers, and Ianto had to mentally kick himself to remember that he now _looked _ like a seventeen-year-old, himself. It was so easy to forget when he didn't have anyone but Max to compare himself to.

Even judging by appearances, however, he was still the eldest of this group.

Teenagers in the twenty-first century had always been the best place to look if you wanted to know what was officially 'cool', clothing-wise. This group, however, was about as diverse as humanly possible. In fact, he got the impression- not just now, but on the ride over here as well- that as far as clothing went, anything goes.

Not that Ianto had ever really cared that much. He had only been considering this detail to ensure that once he earned his freedom today, he would be able to choose attire that wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb wherever he went.

His own taste had always been significantly more practical... with the possible exception of choosing to always wear a proper suit to work at _Torchwood_ of all places. Sure, Torchwood One had the facade of being a real business, and as such they had a dress code... but Torchwood Three had a seventeen percent chance, on any given day, of ending up covered in alien blood... or other fluids of one sort or another.

Thirty-eight percent, if Jack counted as alien.

The only reason Ianto had ever worn a suit there was because Jack had said it looked good on him.

It occurred to him now that if he was going to have to deal with a past version of Jack at some point, then there was absolutely no way he would be wearing a suit again any time soon. For some reason, the thought that Jack's liking for his suits came from someone he met at the Agency- even if it was _him_- made his skin crawl.

Most of the younger applicants here looked rather nervous, and had huddled together for the illusion of comfort gleaned from the concept of safety in numbers.

A pair of older teens stood apart from everyone else, holding hands and giving each other the sort of sappy looks that made it blatantly clear that they were only taking this test to make it legal for them to jump each other.

The rest of them were just standing around looking bored and uncomfortable with the whole situation. Exactly as Ianto was. At least he wasn't the only one, he thought.

"We're just waiting on two more applicants." a middle-aged woman in an ugly, dusty-pink dress announced to them, with the sort of efficient business-like tone that forced the listener to pay attention and show respect. "Or ten o'clock. Whichever happens first."

He smiled, faintly amused that the person in charge really didn't care about keeping strictly to the timetable... as long as you weren't late.

Ianto watched the digital clock on the wall, as time ticked by a little too slowly for his liking. It was making him nervous, and he wasn't sure just how much longer he could hide that feeling.

Just as the clock was about to strike ten, the doors opened and a young man- he looked to be the same age as Ianto did- strolled in, glanced up at the clock and grinned smugly. "Sorry, I'm two seconds early." he said, in the kind of cheerful tone that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or just in a generally good mood.

Everyone Ianto he had met so far at the Agency had varying types of American accents. The woman in pink sounded distinctly English. This boy's accent could almost have passed for American as well, except it just... wasn't. Ianto really couldn't think of anything to compare it to.

Max, who was sitting off in a corner, as far away from the other 'parents' as possible, looked up at this. "I didn't know this was your day, too."

"If you hadn't been in such a hurry, dad would have insisted we share a cab." the teenager said brightly, "Life isn't a race where first to the finish wins, y'know, Max."

Max rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat, pointedly returning his full attention to a book in his hands.

"Come on, children." the woman in charge announced, "Follow me, please."

Ianto made a point of being next to this other young man his own (apparent) age, as they walked, and asked quietly, "You know Max?"

"Yeah. Seen him around a few times." he answered with a shrug, "I'm Ross Tamsen. _Please_ call me Tam."

Ianto hesitated, still a bit uncomfortable with his new alias, "Michael Harper."

"Nice to meet you. Good luck." Tam said with what looked like a genuine smile.

"Thanks, you too."

x x x

The test, it turned out, was incredibly easy.

Rather than the old image in his mind of an examination hall, where everyone would sit at desks with inkwells and fill in their answers on paper, the test was done on computers. Computers like the ones he had seen in Max's lab, where the screen was so thin that he was afraid to touch it in case he broke it, and the keyboard was a touch-sensitive plate instead of buttons.

He had learned everything he needed to know for this test, about contemporary laws and social standards, from the books that Max had given him. The rest was all a matter of basic logic and common sense.

He was quite surprised to find himself automatically lying on a few of the '_what would you do if..._' moral questions. He knew what the 'right' answers should be, though, and he was sure that this was really the point of the test. To prove that he understood the difference between right and wrong.

The best part, in his opinion, was that the tests were graded immediately. Processed automatically by the computers, and the results issued in the form of a printout, before they left the room. This way, he wouldn't spend ages wondering whether he had passed or not.

"Everyone who received a passing grade, take the door on your right, here." the woman in charge commanded, "The rest of you, better luck next time, and please follow me."

Ianto glanced at his score, just as Tam asked, "What'd you get?" leaning just a little too close, while still failing to read over his shoulder.

"Pass, with one hundred and sixty-four intelligence, and ninety-eight percent moral integrity." He looked up at Tam, pretending not to be bothered by the obviously casual and benign invasion of his personal space. "You?"

"One-nine-seven, and sixty-three percent." he answered brightly, "Evil genius in the making."

Ianto suddenly felt the compulsion to confess, with a vaguely dismissive shrug, "I lied on the moral questions."

Tam stared at him, slightly shocked. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

They followed the others who had passed the test- including the pair of teenage-sweethearts- through the door, into a smaller room. Here they found an elderly man at a computer desk, and several chairs around the edge of the room.

The man called them up in no order that Ianto could recognise, and each person held out their left arm, to allow him to update their ID chips.

"Do you think that'll hurt?" Tam asked in an undertone. "I was too young to remember now, when I go the black mark."

"I don't know." Ianto answered with a shrug, "I'd imagine so... but I wouldn't bet on it."

"Michael Harper." the old man called out.

It took a second for Ianto to remember that this was meant to be him... and he quickly approached the desk, holding out his left arm just as the others before him had done.

The man waved a hand-held device- which must have been at least part-scanner- over Ianto's arm, and nodded at the information that appeared on his screen, before pushing a few buttons, and pressing the device down onto his arm.

He felt a slight sting, and that was it. The computer beeped in a distinctly affirmative tone, and when the device was removed from his arm a green mark had been added right next to the black one.

The man then disinterestedly handed him a small bit of plastic roughly the size and shape of a credit card, and waved for him to move along.

Upon reading it, Ianto realised that this was a certificate of passing the test. Purely for show, and completely unnecessary, as that information must now be contained on their computer systems and his ID chip as well.

He turned to leave, pausing only to stage-whisper to Tam, "Hurt like hell!" before making his way back, to find Max.

He had barely taken two steps into the waiting room when he was hit upside the head with something soft and entirely ineffective at causing any real pain. He turned to see Tam holding what looked like a wallet, and only just failing in an attempt at a homicidal glare.

"Lying bastard." Tam crowed, as if it was a compliment.

He only just noticed Tam putting his certificate away in said wallet, before both had disappeared and he wasn't sure where. "Sorry. Couldn't resist." he said with a faint smirk.

"Need a ride home, Tam?" Max asked, casually closing and pocketing the book he had been reading this whole time. "This one's got a meeting with the boss at two, so we'll be heading back there after lunch."

"You're buying." Tam said bluntly, smiling all the same, "As of five minutes ago, my allowance has been cut, so I'm broke until dad gives me a job."

"Which will be when? Two-thirty?" Max asked snidely.

Tam pulled a face, "No. Four-fifty-nine." he grinned, "Right before the official end of the work day, so I'll can still get paid and not have to do anything until tomorrow."

"When your dad plays favourites, he really doesn't do it by halves, does he?" Max said with an amused frown, "Come on, then. I know a good place in the Denvarian district, only a few blocks from here... and yes, I'm buying."

x x x

The 'Denvarian district' was like an alien version of Chinatown or Little Italy.

Denvarians also had blue skin, a much lighter shade than the Thessians he had seen earlier... and more scaly, almost draconic. Their most distinctive features were small lines of blunt horns along their temples and noses, in a way that made Ianto imagine- whether accurately or not- that they had evolved from something that once had a crest like a triceratops.

They were incredibly friendly and courteous- Max idly mentioned that they were very fond of human culture- and the food (sandwiches) actually seemed to be made from sources native to Earth.

It was surprising just how much Ianto had missed a simple ham and cheese sandwich, while Max had been bringing him strange, unfamiliar- though admittedly good- food since he had woken in this century.

Only one thing managed to disappoint... coffee was not on the menu. He had actually never asked Max about coffee, and he really hoped it still existed in this time. He was sure that it was possible for an entire species of plant to go extinct within three thousand years, but he somehow doubted this was the case here.

And that was another thing to remember not to inflict upon a younger Jack Harkness. He had once called Ianto's coffee the best in the universe... and though he was sure a younger version of Jack would like still it, Ianto refused to give those past compliments reason to become lies.

"So what was your score, when you passed, Max?" Tam asked, grinning.

"One-eight-eight, and seventy-two."

"I got one-nine-seven, and sixty-three." Tam gloated.

"Yeah, y'know there is a proven statistical curve between intelligence and morality." Max said idly. "Kael, what'd you get?"

Ianto blinked. His new name had already been abbreviated, while he hadn't been paying attention? And pointedly against all possible rude jokes involving surnames. "Oh, uh, one-six-four and ninety-eight."

"He cheated." Tam laughed.

"I know right from wrong." Ianto retorted, before asking Max, "What are the pass requirements, anyway?"

Max shrugged vaguely, "If you get less than sixty on the general knowledge, you don't know planetary law well enough, and could be a danger to yourself and others. Less than one hundred on the intelligence scale and you're not considered capable of making reasonable decisions for yourself."

That surprised Ianto. In his own time, an IQ of 100 was considered to be around average intelligence. Maybe they changed it- nobody had actually called this part of the test 'IQ', so it could be an entirely different form of measurement- or maybe people were just smarter in this time?

"Less than fifty on the moral scale-" Max continued, "-and you're a real danger to society."

"Hey, thirteen percent win, even without cheating." Tam said, smirking sardonically, "My dad's gonna be disappointed."

"Disappointed?" Ianto asked, slightly shocked at this statement. He had passed, wasn't that what counted?

"Thirteen percent more moral than the bare minimum. I'm gonna be labelled goody-two-shoes from here on out."

"That's nothing to Kael, here." Max laughed, "Ninety-eight." He let out a low whistle.

"I cheated." Ianto defended, mildly horrified at needing to feel that way about being a decent person. He didn't cheat by _that _ much!

The other two were both laughing now, "It's not cheating if you know the right answer." Tam said brightly, "If you're not amoral enough to need to write the answers on your arm before the test, then you didn't cheat."

"Lying and cheating are different things." Max agreed, before cheerfully adding, "And you need to be good at both to get by in the Agency."

x x x

It was nearly two o'clock, and Ianto sat outside a very official-looking door labelled, '_Director's Office_'. Nothing else. No name or anything.

Max had disappeared off to do whatever it was that he was paid to do in this place. Tam had said that he would be in the library if anyone needed him.

This left Ianto all alone, here.

It felt oddly like waiting outside the principal's office in school. A sense of nervousness and foreboding, even though he knew he had actually done something _good_, not bad.

Finally, the door opened, and a tall, stern-looking man stood there, dressed all in black, much finer than the Agency uniforms. It perfectly matched his equally black hair and dark eyes. "Michael Harper, is it?" he asked, sounding rather amused, "Very good. Do come in."

He stepped aside and beckoned Ianto into the office. Ianto immediately obeyed, looking around the spacious office with interest. It somehow managed to be cold and efficient, yet almost welcoming at the same time.

He briefly considered how very similar to Emperor Palpatine's office, in Star Wars, this place actually looked. Especially with the large window opening onto a beautiful view of the city skyline.

Come to think of it, he really didn't know what city he was in... or even what planet he was on! He could only guess at Earth because the sky was blue. And if movies were anything to go by, that really didn't help!

"This is the first time I ever knew a recruit's 'name' before they joined. Please, sit." the Director continued calmly, closing the door and moving over to sit behind the large desk in the middle of the room. Ianto warily took one of two chairs facing the desk. "I'm sure you are aware that it is company policy, for your own safety, that you not reveal your true name to anyone. In fact, in most cases it is usually the new Agent's responsibility to falsify their own death." He smiled faintly, "Not that you need to fake it, of course, but the point still stands."

Ianto frowned, "How is that for my own safety?" he asked. He had actually meant to ask Max about this strange rule, before now, but hadn't had a good opportunity.

"The Agency deals in time travel. However, we are not the only ones capable of doing so, and it has happened in the past, that by knowing a person's true identity, a malicious time-traveller could prevent them from having ever existed."

Ianto blinked. Just like they tried to do in the Terminator movies. Well, the first one at least. "Right. That's not paranoid at all." he muttered sarcastically.

The Director actually smiled at this, before changing the subject, "I'm told you're from the twentieth century?"

"Well, I was born in the twentieth century." he corrected, "I liked what I saw of the twenty-first better."

"But you do have a good knowledge of what, from your perspective, would have been recent history?"

Ianto nodded, "Yes, sir."

"We have a surprisingly high percentage of missions to that era. Local knowledge is always highly prized." the Director said calmly, before leaning forward and continuing rather more seriously, "Are you aware of precisely what you are becoming involved with, here?"

Ianto thought about it for a moment, before answering carefully, "Not exactly... but what choice do I have?"

"Until you sign a contract with us, you can still walk away."

"I'm actually very surprised to hear that." Ianto admitted.

The Director chuckled darkly, "I didn't say you would walk away with any knowledge of our existence. The Time Agency is highly classified. We don't officially exist. Nor do you, in a technical sense."

"What does that mean?" he asked, warily.

"Raising the dead is generally frowned upon by society as a whole." the Director answered calmly, "And as for my Agents, I certainly don't want them to consider it a viable option. It would be in your own best interests not to reveal your past to anyone."

"I understand. Honestly, I don't really want to, anyway."

"Very good." the Director said with a curt nod, "If you do agree to work for us, you will be given two years of training, before being assigned to active missions. These missions can be anything from simple retrieval of information, to repairing timelines that have been interfered with by external influences."

"You make it sound so benign." Ianto said, trying not to sound too morbid as he added, "If you were so noble, you wouldn't need to threaten to erase my memories."

"Most of the time, our missions can be accomplished through civilised means. However, you are quite correct." he said, with a nod. "Deception and infiltration are skills you will need to learn if you join us. As well as combat and execution."

"Execution?" Ianto repeated.

"Allow me to use an example you might be most familiar with." the Director said, suddenly giving off an air of danger and malice that genuinely frightened Ianto, though he did his best not to show it. "It was a Time Agent behind the grassy knoll."

Ianto blinked, carefully putting on the mask of emotionless calm he had learned to use around Torchwood, "Why?"

The Director carefully folded his hands in front of him holding Ianto's gaze as he answered, "A benevolent but misguided extra-temporal influence saved the president's life by interrupting the original assassin. The unexpected consequences of this act were that in nineteen-sixty-four, John F. Kennedy was impeached, leading to political upheaval that triggered a nuclear war and devastated the future of humanity as we know it. The Agency detected the disturbance before its ripple-effect could destroy our own time, and we took steps to rectify the situation."

"By committing murder." Ianto said bluntly, not entirely sure if he should be horrified by this or not. Logically, one life to save all of humanity was not a bad deal.

"Would you not do the same?" the Director asked.

"I don't think I'm that good a shot." he answered evasively.

It wasn't a complete lie. He had excellent aim with hand-guns, but had never once touched a rifle in his life. Unless that alien one Torchwood had salvaged from the docks once, which fired toxic green slime instead of bullets, counted. And even then, he hadn't fired it.

The Director casually glanced at a computer screen next to him, "Ninety-eight percent?" he asked sceptically, "And you didn't immediately deny the very thought?"

"One life for millions isn't that difficult a choice, sir."

The Director shrugged, "Moral debates are for those who have morals in the first place. I still believe you have excellent potential, if you should choose to join the Agency."

Ianto smiled faintly, "Where do I sign?"

x x x


	5. Try Not To Look Too Incompetent

x x x

**Chapter 5: "Try Not To Look Too Incompetent, It's Embarrassing."**

x x x

The instructions had seemed quite simple. Meet his new trainer in the social club on the second floor, that evening.

This was made a great deal more difficult by the fact that he had not been told who his new trainer was, nor what they looked like.

Tam had decided to accompany him, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The 'social club' was actually very much more like a night club. Loud music and dancing, and a lot of people there. Honestly, it might have seemed quite overwhelming, if he didn't have someone with him.

"So what exactly is your connection to the Agency?" he asked Tam, as they found a (relatively) quiet corner from which to observe the rest of the room.

"Officially, I'm the boss's son." Tam said with an idle shrug.

"And unofficially?" he prodded.

"I was the only survivor of a really big temporal disaster that the Agency failed to prevent. The Agents who found me just couldn't bear to leave a screaming two-year-old all alone, as the last living thing on a post-apocalyptic planet, so they brought me back and the boss adopted me."

"It doesn't bother you to talk about it?" he asked, stunned at the casual and unconcerned way that Tam had just said all of that.

"No, why should it? Everyone here knows." Tam shrugged dismissively, "Besides, it's in the past."

"But we're Time Agents, now." he pointed out. By the very definition of the job, they could time-travel. Something in the past shouldn't be out of their reach.

"Apparently, changing your own past is against the rules." Tam said, with a dismissive shrug. Either he was entirely happy with the way his life turned out, and just amoral enough not to care about the homeworld he had probably forgotten by now anyway... or he was very good at hiding his real feelings.

Kael decided not to think about it, for now, and quickly changed the subject by asking, "Do you know who I'm supposed to meet here?"

"Nope." Tam said with a shrug, seeming entirely unconcerned, "But I was told we've both got the same trainer, so it should be easier to try to figure it out together. It's probably a test, or something."

"You don't know who trains the new recruits?" he asked, surprised.

"Everyone who's any good gets a turn at it." Tam answered, now scanning the room idly, "Everyone has different experiences and different, valuable knowledge to impart on the next generation. So it could be almost any of the active Agents."

"Good evening boys." a friendly-sounding man called nearby. Ianto looked up to see an incredibly average-looking man- brown hair, brown eyes, perfectly generic good-looks, the kind you'd have seen in a boy-band in the twentieth century, really- holding a tray with two glasses on it. "Drinks, compliments of the lady at the bar."

"Thanks, Lex." Tam said brightly, taking one of the two identical glasses immediately.

Ianto- he should really start thinking of himself as Kael, since that was his new name, now- was slower to accept the offer.

He scanned the bar, but saw three women there and couldn't tell which one the man was referring to. If any of them were watching, they were doing so very discreetly.

"Thanks." he said automatically, taking the remaining glass.

As the man who had delivered their drinks left, Ianto- no, his name was Kael now, and damn but it was hard to just change your name like that- eyed his glass with deep suspicion.

It looked like whiskey, but it smelled of something almost herbal, and the rim of the glass was encrusted with what appeared to be salt, in the style of some of the classy and girly cocktail drinks he had occasionally seen but never tasted, in his own time.

It might have had something to do with the fact that he, himself, had regularly spiked Owen's coffee... but he certainly was not about to accept drinks from an unidentified Time Agent at face value. Even if it had been in a sealed bottle, he would have been wary.

Tam, on the other hand, had already raised the glass to his lips when Ianto asked in shock, "You're not seriously going to drink that?"

Tam hesitated, "Why not?"

"I don't even know where to begin explaining how wrong the idea of accepting a mysterious free drink like this is." Ianto- no it's _Kael_, damnit!- said with a weak laugh, setting his own glass down on the table in front of him, "We don't know who sent it or why. We don't know who else might have handled it between the bar and here. Anyone could have put anything into that glass."

"Dear gods, you are paranoid." Tam said bluntly, "I know everyone in this Agency, and none of them are stupid enough to poison the boss's son."

"I didn't say it had to be poison." Kael warned darkly. '_Hey, I got my name right!_' He thought with sardonic cheer.

Tam shrugged, and downed the drink in one... then promptly fell asleep, slumped over onto the table in front of them. The empty glass still in his hand, as he began to snore loudly.

Kael rolled his eyes melodramatically. "I did warn you." he muttered to his unconscious friend.

Friend? Really? He didn't usually make friends easily, but yes. Tam did seem to fit the definition of the term well enough.

He scanned the bar carefully, again. There were still three women there. Two of them- a blonde and a red-head- were chatting to each other, while a darker-haired one was drinking and giving off an air of morbid depression.

The red-head was the only one even close to facing them. At a guess- though from what he had read apparent-age seemed to mean very little to chronological age in this century- she looked to be in her late twenties, and the way her hair was cut to just below her chin framed her face very prettily, giving her a look of innocence that Ianto- Kael!- didn't buy for a second.

The face of the blonde she was talking too was completely concealed behind the mass of hair, while the third woman looked so incredibly drunk, and close enough to unconsciousness herself, that either she was an excellent actor, or she couldn't possibly have had the coherent thought necessary to spike their drinks.

He was distracted from his attempt to evaluate which one was responsible, when an unfortunately familiar voice cheered eagerly, "Well hello there, newbie."

"Go to hell, Warren." he answered, in the same dismissive tone he had always used to retaliate to Owen's insults. Although Owen had never managed to scare him, before... and it took some effort to hide that emotion now, when he spoke.

Warren ignored this suggestion, instead sitting down next to him, effectively cornering Ianto between him and a very much unconscious Tam. "I just wanted to congratulate you on passing your test and joining the Agency." he said, in that unsettlingly familiar seductive tone that he had used before.

And then his hand was on Ianto's knee, and he was leaning far too close. Ianto turned his head to the side, to avoid any possible attempt at kissing him... and his eyes landed on the untouched- and surely spiked- drink.

He pointedly pushed Warren's hand away, disgusted by this man's mere proximity. "I'm really not ready for what I know you want from me, Warren." he said, in his most polite tone, doing his best to bite back any anger he felt, "And even if I was, you're doing a very poor job of persuading me to consider _you _ for it. So instead of trying to maul me, how about we talk about this like reasonable people?"

He could feel the other man's breath on his neck, and it took all his self-control not to shudder in disgust. But then Warren did back off a little. "Okay, I'm always willing to try new things."

Kael blinked once, and only just resisted the instinct to laugh derisively at that. Instead he forced a faint, hopefully polite smile, "Why me?" he asked.

Warren was still uncomfortably close, but at least he wasn't actually touching him now. "At first, morbid curiosity about all those rumours I mentioned last time we met." he admitted with a shrug, "But you are... very attractive in your own right." Even as he said this, Warren was blatantly eyeing him up.

Kael frowned, glancing once more at the drink, rather than meeting this man's far-too-intent gaze, "Are you ever going to leave me alone, if I just say no?"

"Not likely." Warren said with a vague shrug, "I always get what I want in the end."

Damnit. So much for reasonable negotiation. Time for Plan B.

Kael laughed weakly, allowing his fear and nerves to show, now. Better to let Warren think he was harmless, before resorting to the only weapon he had available. Less chance that he'll suspect it.

"Well, then..." he said in a slightly shaky tone, before gesturing to the glass on the table, "How about a drink?" he asked politely, in the way that was offering said drink, rather than asking for it.

Warren took the glass without a second thought. Apparently new-born AIs aren't supposed to be sneaky underhanded bastards. Either that or the feigned innocence worked. It didn't really matter which, in the end.

"Mmm, Talerian fire-tea. Don't mind if I do." And with that, Warren downed the whole thing in one go, just as Tam had done.

Kael watched him carefully for a few seconds... then he saw the change, as shocked realisation slowly spread across Warren's face.

"You- you spiked my- my drink." he gasped, "You little..." He tried to grab Ianto's shirt, but whatever sedative had been in the drink took effect far too quickly, and he began to slump forward. Kael carefully pushed him away, as he passed out, so that he didn't collapse on top of him.

He stared at the unconscious body of his newest enemy with detached fascination.

For a brief moment he fully understood the drunken youth of his own era, who found cheap amusement in drawing on, decorating, or otherwise humiliating their unconscious drinking buddies. The fact that he would probably have added maiming and disfiguring to the list in Warren's case did not seem to register in his mind as a bad thing.

Slow applause from behind him suddenly snapped him out of it, and he turned to see the red-haired woman standing by their table.

Now that he got a closer look, Ianto was quite stunned by precisely what she was wearing. Underneath a black jacket that- aside from being cropped short, and looking far too small for her- seemed to match the other Agency uniforms he had seen, she wore a tight black shirt and short skirt. It was all so very form-fitting, and left very little to the imagination, as to just how slender and attractive her body was.

It was, quite frankly, distracting... and he got the strong impression that it was deliberately intended to have that effect.

"I am impressed." she said with an oddly lilting accent that Ianto couldn't place. It sounded similar to Tam's, but softer and even less comparable to American.

"You sent us the drinks?" he made it sound like a question, but he knew he was right.

"Yes, I did." she gave the two unconscious men amused looks, before seating herself next to Tam, "I am Leliana Serra, but you may call me Leli. I have been assigned to teach you how to be a Time Agent." She glanced at Tam, with a slight arch of one elegant eyebrow, "I see shall I have my work cut out for me with this one."

Kael smiled faintly, "I did warn him."

"And this...?" she asked, indicating Warren.

"I didn't feel like dealing with him while he was conscious." Ianto admitted, "And a perfectly good spiked drink was just sitting there, going to waste."

Leliana's laughter was quite musical, and she nodded in agreement, "You are intelligent and resourceful. I think I will enjoy working with you."

She pulled something small from a pocket, and was waving it under Tam's nose before Ianto could recognise that it was a bottle. It looked distinctly like smelling salts, to be honest.

She saw him staring, and explained, "Inhalant antidote to the sedative. It's always useful, if you want to remain inconspicuous, to use tools that appear to blend in with historic times... even if they are in reality a great deal more advanced."

Tam snorted loudly, and then woke up very suddenly, "Wha-?"

"I warned you." Ianto repeated.

"Ow, who did that?" Tam grumbled, rubbing his head as if in pain, "I'll tell my dad, and they'll be in so much trouble..."

Leliana cleared her throat lightly, "You just failed your first test as my student, Tam." she said with a warm and serene smile, "But I assure you, there will be many more opportunities to redeem yourself."

"We got _you?_" Tam asked, awed, "Sweet."

Leliana gave Tam a vaguely pained look, "You would think a child of the Agency would know better." She glanced at Kael, and then smiled addressing both of them, "This was your first lesson. Trust no one, and never let your guard down."

"Sorry, Leli." Tam said bowing his head slightly, so as not to meet her eyes, in what Ianto was certain was an entirely false apology. He'd been on the receiving end of enough of them, from his niece and nephew, to recognise it for what it really was.

"I shall see both of you in training room six, at eight AM sharp, tomorrow." she said firmly. Then with a polite nod to each of them, followed by a vague glance and an unconcerned shrug at Warren, she turned and left.

Neither Kael nor Tam could take their eyes off her as she walked away, until she was out the door.

x x x

Ianto returned to the lab, that evening, to find Max working on one of his other projects.

"Hey, Kael. How'd the meeting go?" Max asked, not bothering to look up from his work.

"She's gorgeous." he answered, "Bloody scary, but beautiful."

"Who'd you get?" Max asked, setting down the object he had been disassembling, and now turning to look at Kael, "There's plenty of gorgeous women working here. In fact, the hiring policy is a bit biased, and it's usually only the very attractive people that are ever taken on as active Agents. Makes it easier to get into places you technically shouldn't be, if you're pretty enough."

Kael frowned at that statement, however true it may be. "Leliana." he answered, moving to sit on a nearby lab stool that pointedly wasn't near any machinery of any kind.

"Oh, she's really good." Max said with an eager nod, "Best infiltrator on the payroll, last I heard. Damned good at the charm approach, in interrogation, too."

"I can see why." Ianto said with a distant smile. Much as he tried, he really couldn't stop picturing that outfit Leliana had been wearing.

He barely noticed, as Max stood up and went over to his desk to root around in a drawer... until he suddenly found an unmarked book being pressed into his hands.

"Oh yeah, she's hot." Max said, nodding, "And the odds are that she _will_ let you have sex with her." He coughed, as if unsure how to word what he planned to say next, "You may have experience in your own century, but that was three thousand years of genetically enhanced evolution ago. You might want to read this."

All thoughts of the beautiful woman whom he had met earlier suddenly flew out the metaphorical window, as he stared at the blank cover of the book in his hands. He had quickly figured out, during his studying, that when Max gave him an unmarked book it was usually a collection of compiled notes, rather than anything official.

Honestly, he was surprised that- if there were significant differences he needed to know about- fifty-first century sex-ed hadn't come up during the last week. All the laws around the subject of sex had been on the test, and it seemed downright wrong to him that something significant enough for Max to have made notes like this hadn't.

"Uh... thanks." he said, with uncertainty.

In a way, he was very grateful for the fact that Max was socially awkward, even by twenty-first century standards. Tam was far too excitable to care if he said something that made others uncomfortable. Leliana was a walking wet dream. And Warren was... well, best not thought about at all.

He decided that if he was going to meet Leliana again in the morning, he should probably read as much as he could now. There might be something in there about resisting the infamous fifty-first century pheromones Jack had once told him of. With that in mind, he took the book, and retreated to the living area, where the couch he had slept on for the last week was still waiting for him.

He made a mental note to start looking for a place of his own as soon as possible.

It turned out that the book Max had given him was a very detailed collection of geneticists' notes on human evolution over the last three thousand years. Most of it went right over his head, but even the simplified footnotes only mentioned one thing he found at all relevant.

Okay, two... but he had already known about the immunities to diseases.

In fact, combining these two details effectively rendered all twenty-first century contraceptive devices entirely obsolete, because it was possible for any human to consciously engage a natural (if you count genetic engineering as natural, which apparently these notes did) form of contraception that, when used correctly, was one hundred percent fool-proof.

The notes came with complicated diagrams, and by the time he went to sleep he had memorised it. Purely for the sake of knowledge, if nothing else.

Besides, whatever Max had said about her, it wasn't like he was planning to allow anything to happen with his new trainer, anyway.

x x x

The training rooms were easy enough to find, and Ianto was there for three minutes... before Tam walked in at the exact moment that the clock turned over to eight.

"You do that on purpose." Kael informed him, amused at this detail, but trying not to show it.

"The _real _ trick is doing it on purpose, without waiting outside the door beforehand. I haven't quite mastered that one yet." Tam muttered.

"What if your watch is slow?" Ianto asked, before quickly back-pedalling in case such a suggestion offended Tam, "Or theirs is fast, or something?"

Tam just stared at him for a second, then laughed, "Wow, Max really only taught you what you needed to know to pass the test, didn't he?"

"What?" Kael asked defensively.

"All clocks, watches, and any other timepieces you can buy on human-colonised worlds, are set with global positioning and radio receivers, and they get updated from a big atomic clock at the planet's prime meridian." Tam explained, looking incredibly pleased at an opportunity to share this obscure bit of knowledge, "Which in turn is set up to receive signals from every other major planet in the Empire... all carefully programmed to account for annoying little details, like orbital cycles, and delays in transmission due to the speed of light. So basically wherever you are, you can know the correct time both locally and on your homeworld."

"And you know this... why?" Kael asked blankly.

"I was raised by the Time Agency. I like knowing things about time. You're really surprised?"

"No. Honestly, I'm not." Kael muttered.

Tam briefly glanced around the room, frowning, "S'not like Leli to be late."

"That would be because I'm not." a strong valley-girl accent called from behind Kael. He turned to see Leliana standing in the corner, watching them with a smile. Her accent suddenly switched to proper English. "A Time Agent is never late. Nor are they early. They arrive precisely when they mean to."

"She's weirding me out." Tam stage-whispered to Kael, grinning all the same.

"Twenty-first century movie reference." Ianto explained vaguely, deciding it would sound almost as odd and obscure as Tam's speech on timekeeping, if he added that that quote wasn't in the twentieth-century novel that the movie was based on. "And was that a hint that I should try to change my accent?" Squire had already commented on it sounding unusual, so he wouldn't be that surprised.

"Actually, Tam's accent is the more problematic." Leliana answered, back to the soft lilting tone she had used the night before, "Your existing expertise will most often lead to assignments in a time when it can be explained away." She gave Tam a rather sardonic smile, "Fewer people in Earth's past, however, are known for speaking with a Thessian accent." She turned her gaze to Kael, now, "But it still wouldn't hurt you to try and learn a greater range."

Tam sulked, folding his arms almost defensively, "Your fault. You helped raise me. You and your Thessian aunt." This might have seemed genuinely offensive- possibly even racist- if it weren't for the light in his eyes and the friendly grin on his face as he said it.

"Tamsen..." Leliana said with blatantly forced calm, "You should curb that tone. People don't respond well to it, and as an Agent much of your work will depend on your ability to deal with other people."

"Sorry, Leli." And there was the false apology once more.

Leliana shrugged slightly, turning her back on them and glancing at a book in her hand. Then very suddenly, she turned around and aimed a kick at Kael's stomach. It was only after he instinctively dodged, and knocked her leg away to one side, that he realised she hadn't put any serious weight behind the attack.

Tam had also reacted quickly, on his guard in an instant... but as soon as he saw that it wasn't a real attack, he relaxed almost immediately. Leliana also managed to look completely calm and unruffled, as if she hadn't just physically assaulted one of her students... however fake that kick had actually been.

"Another test?" Tam asked, frowning.

Leliana smiled warmly, nodding, "You both have good reflexes. Of course, I already knew that Tam could fight. This is good, we shouldn't have to focus on hand-to-hand combat as much as I had anticipated."

"So what will we be learning?" Tam asked hopefully.

"Everything." Leliana said, with the sort of gleeful tone that you would have expected from a cheerleader.

It was very disconcerting the way she so easily went from mysterious and exotic, to cold and professional, to a perfect imitation of a brainless bimbo, and back again.

"While I expect you both to end up with missions to relatively civilised times, for the most part, there have been occasions where the only Agents available for a mission are not the specialists that would usually be chosen. One time, for example, Squire had to go on a diplomatic mission to Alpha Centauri, in the forty-eighth century. He may not have liked it, but this is the reason we train you to handle work outside of your specialised fields."

Kael blinked, then looked at Tam with a blank stare, "What's your specialised field, anyway?"

"The classic confidence trick." Tam grinned, "If it wants to get rich quick, I can take it for everything it's ever owned and then its firstborn heir. Wouldn't have guessed, would you?" Kael continued to look sceptical, and Tam's grin only broadened in a way that suddenly made him look much less friendly. "That's the point."

"Right." Kael said with a slow nod, while making a mental note never to ask Tam for anything that might be even vaguely to do with money. Ever.

Leliana cleared her throat lightly, drawing their attention easily back to her, "Over the next two years, you will study history, psychology- both human and otherwise- how to use and repair weapons and technology from all eras, wilderness survival, and social standards over the last four thousand years. The last thing you want is to turn up in Victoria the First's time, not knowing the dress-code... or twentieth-century Alabama, without knowing the local prejudices."

Ianto snorted with mildly horrified laughter, at that thought, while Tam stared blankly, "What prejudices?"

"Oh, where to begin!" Kael chuckled, finding cruel amusement at his friend's blatant confusion, "There's a list."

"To begin with." Leliana interrupted, "The most important things you will need to know, as a Time Agent, are in these books. Learn them." She gave Tam a pointed look, "And I mean _learn_, not memorise by rote."

"She's on to me." Tam stage-whispered to Kael, smirking.

She handed them each a book labelled '_FAQ About Time Travel_'. Kael was sure he remembered a movie by the same name, released very shortly before his last memories of the twenty-first century. He chose not to comment on this.

However. "Yes, Kael, they are named after the twenty-first century movie." Leliana said bluntly, smiling in faint amusement, "And no, I can't read your mind, but your surprise now tells me my guess was accurate. It's a matter of secrecy. People will be much less likely to believe that this is anything real, when there was a fiction of the same name."

Like all those times when Suzie Costello would oh-so-idly refer to Torchwood 3 as 'T3', and everyone thought she was talking about the third Terminator movie. Back in the good old days before the Cardiff police catchphrase became 'bloody Torchwood'.

"You can lock these books to only display their contents to you, and I suggest you do just that." she continued calmly, "It's easy. Just select 'security', and press your thumbprint on the screen. No one outside the Agency is allowed to read these. If they do, their memories will have to be edited, and that is not a pleasant process. Not to mention you, yourselves, would end up under house-arrest within the Agency building. Also not as pleasant as it sounds. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Leli." Tam said brightly, as if these threats were not of any concern to him whatsoever.

She looked to Kael, and he nodded slowly.

Leliana smiled, "Good. You both have the next three days to yourselves. Relax, celebrate your rite of passage, whatever you want to do. So long as when you come back you know everything in those books. Then we can begin your training."

x x x


	6. I Know Everything

x x x

**Chapter 6: "I Know Everything... And It Says So On the Bottom Of the Screen."**

x x x

With the entire afternoon free, and Tam having made his excuses to be elsewhere, Kael made his way down to the lab in the basement again.

Max was there, working on a machine that contained tubes of bubbling multi-coloured liquid, and was giving off an unsettling amount of purple smoke. Kael wisely stood back, watching with tentative awe.

Max took a couple of minutes to finish taking notes, and then turned the machine off and an extractor fan on. Within seconds there was no evidence of suspicious substances in the room. Then Max looked up as if only just noticing Kael standing there. "Sorry... it wasn't supposed to be doing that." He set his notebook down, and wandered over to sit on a nearby stool, grinning amicably enough, "Smoke was meant to be green. Think I might be missing some chlorophyll somewhere... don't worry, I'll get it eventually."

"So reassuring." Kael deadpanned.

"You want something." Max stated bluntly, as fact, not a question.

Kael nodded slowly, "Yeah. You said I could get my own place, if I wanted to. Somewhere away from the Agency, so I won't feel like they're spying on me in the shower..."

Max laughed, "They don't do that. And if they did then no shower would be safe, even outside this building... but I do know what you mean. It can get a bit claustrophobic, sometimes." He straightened up, suddenly serious, "So you want me to help you find somewhere? Easy."

He turned around to the computer that happened to be next to him, and began to type diligently, while Kael watched with interest. It looked like the Internet he remembered... but flashier. And a _lot_ faster. Kael really wasn't sure how Max managed to keep up with everything that popped up on the screen.

It only took a couple of minutes for Max to find what he was looking for, "Okay, here. Take a look at these."

Kael frowned, as Max turned the screen so he could see better. It was a list of apartments for rent in the city ('_New New York_'... and here he had thought that originality was dead). Complete with pictures and details of what each one had to offer.

He was grateful to find that below the city's name, it also said that they were on Earth, so finally he knew that he hadn't woken up on some strange alien planet on top of everything else.

"They're are all easily affordable on an Agency salary. Take your pick." Max said brightly.

It was that simple, huh?

Kael took his time, reading through the list carefully. He had no idea of the currency value here, but if they were all within his price-range, he could easily guess that he was going to be paid ridiculously well, judging by some of the places on this list. Finally he settled on a relatively modest apartment- compared to the rest of the list, at least- only a few blocks away.

He pointed to it, "I like this one." He chose it primarily for the simple fact that it was possible to get there on foot. He didn't want to have to learn to navigate the unfamiliar city in his first week out, if he could avoid it.

"No problem." Max pressed a couple of buttons, and then held up a scanner. It looked very much like a smaller, sleeker version the one which had been used to read- and then update- his ID chip. "Just scan your chip here, and it's yours."

Kael's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "Just like that? But I don't have any money yet."

"Your salary is paid into an Agency account in your name." Max explained casually, "Your ID chip is basically your key to pretty much anything that's digitally in your name... although I'd still advised you to think up different passwords for everything, for extra security." He shrugged, turning back to the screen and indicating the picture of the apartment Kael had chosen, "The housing system automatically takes into account your current bank balance, prospective income, and any other records- which _you_ don't actually have yet- to evaluate whether or not you're a suitable tenant. Trust me, between the fact you don't even have a parking ticket to your name, and Agency pay... that building's automated systems will have a positively indecent reaction to your personal data."

Kael frowned slightly, "Just what I wanted to hear." he said sarcastically, before asking, "So I just scan my ID chip and that's it?"

"Yeah. Everything's faster in the fifty-first century." Max grinned for all of half a second, before adding, "Well, everything that can be improved with speed, anyway."

Kael rolled his eyes, fighting back a smirk as he pointedly chose not to notice that obvious insinuation. He pulled up the sleeve of his Agency uniform, and waved his left wrist over the scanner device. The computer beeped, and a bright and cheery pop-up window appeared on the screen politely welcoming him to his new home, and asking him to check out their sponsored links for home-furnishings.

As long as it didn't speak to him like the self-service checkouts he remembered from Tesco's, he would refrain from punching the screen. For now.

Mostly because it was one of Max's computers.

While Kael had been thinking this, however, Max had actually followed the link and ordered several things, apparently even paid for them with his own money. "Give that a few hours, and you'll not just have a roof over your head, but you'll even have a bed, a couch, some chairs, a computer and a food synthesiser." he said cheerfully, "Consider it a gift, for passing your test."

"Thanks." Kael answered automatically, smiling faintly in gratitude.

He really wasn't surprised by this at all. After the way Leliana had referred to it as a rite of passage, it did make sense that it would be celebrated. He mentally classified it under birthdays, anniversaries and arbitrary dates elevated to holiday status by the greeting card industry.

x x x

So it was that, after lunch with Max, Kael found his way to the address that was now his home.

The building looked far warmer, and more friendly, than the cold and efficient Agency building. His ID chip was his front-door key, and his apartment key (second floor, apartment 23). He quickly set passcodes as well, as Max had suggested, and looked around his new place.

He was pleased to find that aside from the new- and sparse- furniture, it looked _exactly_ like the picture. That, in his opinion, had always been the big problem with buying anything over the Internet. You never could be sure that you were getting what the picture showed, until you had already paid for it.

The couch looked like a brand-new version of Max's... and the bed was literally the most comfortable thing in the universe. It was reassuring to know that the basic principles of human comforts really hadn't changed in three thousand years, although they certainly seemed to have been greatly improved upon.

It really was almost cruel, he thought, giving him these things and then expecting him to ever have to go on missions back to the past when nothing like them existed.

He settled down on the couch, and began to read his new book. It turned out that this was actually the Time Agent's Handbook... which he probably could have guessed if he had bothered to try.

'_The Rules:_  
_1: Never tell anyone their own future._  
_They may attempt to change it, and thus prevent crucial historic events (see chapter 9; 'The Truth Is A Terrible And Dangerous Thing')._  
_There are exceptions, but these are rare (see chapter 2; 'Ontological Paradoxes And Stable Time Loops')._

_2: If you remember it happening, do not try to change it yourself._  
_In the rare and unlikely event that you succeed, you could cease to exist (see chapter 1; 'The Grandfather Paradox')._  
_You might even have been the cause of the problem in the first place (see chapter 2)._

_3: Never meet your past self._  
_Physical contact with your past or future self will cause a matter-instability paradox, erasing you from history (see chapter 12; 'Fates Worse Than Death')._  
_There are exceptions to this rule, but these are usually more trouble than they are worth (see chapter 11; 'Enemies Of The Agency')._  
_Not to mention, at least one of you is guaranteed to think the other is a complete ass (see chapter 3; 'Relative Perspectives And Trans-Temporal Terminology')._'

Well, this was going to be a long night.

x x x

He woke up to find that he had fallen asleep on the couch, and the book- now powered down- lay on the floor next to him. He grumbled briefly about the unsettling lack of coffee, and then found his way to the kitchen.

Maybe he could figure out how to work this 'food synthesiser' thing that Max had bought him.

The instruction manual surprised him by being made of paper... just like the ones that came with appliances in his own time. It was also about the size of a phone book.

Well, that was it. He needed coffee, or something similarly caffeinated. So he would have to leave the apartment, and find it on his own.

Or so he thought.

He had barely taken two steps out of the door, when someone came charging out of the apartment opposite his own, and crashed into him. The other person yelped in shock, and jumped back, staring up at him with too-wide eyes.

She- judging gender on the same principle as he had for the Thessians, as she was obviously not human- was about a foot shorter than him, with greyish skin, and short shaggy hair that matched her skin-tone perfectly. Her oddly dark eyes really did look a bit too big for her face, but not in the creepy bug-eyed-monster way... more in the way of an anime cartoon, or Gwen Cooper on a particularly surprising day.

Other than that, her facial features, while rather pointed, did look entirely human... and she was quite pretty.

He briefly wondered what the odds were of so many different species all following the same basic design pattern, but decided that was a question for much later.

In the meantime, the alien girl (woman?) had taken another quick step back, very lightly on the balls of her feet, "Sorry." she said, somehow managing to sound both cheerful and genuinely apologetic at the same time. "I didn't see you there." Like the majority of random voices he had heard in the background, when he had been out in this city before, she sounded almost-but-not-quite American.

"It's okay." he said, too-quickly. "No harm done." Indeed, she hadn't even managed to drop anything, to make one of those dramatic teen-movie scenes of helping to pick up her books. She did have a satchel over her shoulder, but it hadn't been affected at all.

It was then that he noticed. She had a _tail!_

Half-hidden by her satchel, but that was definitely a tail. Thin and somewhat reminiscent of a monkey's, but shorter, only just reaching past her knee... and waving idly behind her right leg, in a gesture somewhere between irritable cat and friendly dog.

He probably shouldn't have been that surprised. He had seen plenty of weird things working for Torchwood... and aliens seemed quite commonplace on Earth, in this time. Still, it was a shock.

Knowing it would be rude to stare, he quickly looked up at her face again. She was grinning, trying not to laugh. That was disconcerting, as well. Her teeth were visibly sharper than a human's. Nothing vicious like a Weevil or anything like that... just slightly pointier than he was entirely comfortable with.

"Haven't seen you 'round here before." she said brightly. If she had noticed him looking at her tail, she either thought it was very funny, or just plain didn't care.

"Just moved in yesterday." he explained, pointlessly indicating the door he had just walked out of a moment ago.

She smiled. No longer showing her teeth, for which he was grateful. "Well, welcome to the neighbourhood." she said brightly, "I'm Paige. Nice to meet you."

"Michael Harper." he replied, a little surprised at how easily that lie came to him. '_Just how many times do I have to say it before it becomes true?_' he wondered. "Friends call me Kael, and I have no idea why." Another lie, but this one could be forgiven as a joke... especially in his usual deadpan tone.

Paige adjusted her satchel, and Kael got a good look at her hands. Her nails were really thick, like very blunt grey claws. She smiled faintly, a crooked smile that showed off a couple of those sharp teeth on one side. "Never seen an alien before?" she asked in a joking, taunting tone.

"Not up close." he answered... idly wondering if he had actually said a single true word to this girl. He had seen enough aliens very close up, working for Torchwood... just never had a friendly conversation with any of them.

She giggled, clearly finding this highly amusing, "Okay, farmboy." she quickly glanced at her watch, "I've got to be at work in an hour, and my breakfast isn't going to order itself, so how about we go down to the coffee shop, and talk more over food?"

While the words 'coffee shop' both appealed and filled him with a sense of mild dread... he just had to ask, indignantly, "Farmboy?"

"If you haven't seen aliens up close, you must be from one of the all-human settlements, on the inner systems of Circinus." she said with a perfectly reasonable, blank 'well duh' tone, "Everybody knows that."

"Right." Kael frowned, "Don't call me farmboy."

Paige giggled again, and took his hand without asking. Those odd nails were really disconcerting, when they were so close to his hand- however blunt they were- but he managed not to flinch, out of pure determination to be polite.

She led him down to the coffee shop she had mentioned, which was only one more block further away from the Agency building. It was a pleasant place that- thankfully- did not go by the name of Starbucks. Paige ordered the 'house special' bagels for both of them, but allowed Kael to order his own coffee.

Their food appeared within a minute, and Paige immediately began to dissect her bagel. He didn't recognise half of what was in it, and wasn't sure if he even wanted to try his own. Then again, it would probably be rude not to.

"I'm half-Chula, on my mother's side." Paige announced bluntly, picking out a piece of something green and eating it. "You got any questions?" Her dark eyes were gleaming with unvoiced laughter, and he could tell she was only just resisting calling him farmboy again.

Aside from, 'if this is what the half-breed looks like, how much stranger did her mother look?'... which would just be plain rude. "Uh..."

"Go on. I won't be offended." she prodded cheerfully.

"You've got a tail." he blurted out.

The appendage in question, which had been waving idly until now, suddenly froze... and then swished back out of sight, under her chair. She actually blushed. "Yeah. All Chula do." she said, diligently staring at her bagel. "I'm half-human, though, so... well. Mom said that's why I got a monkey tail, instead of a real one."

"'Real'?" he asked, confused.

Deciding that staring at her when she was obviously uncomfortable wouldn't help, he instead looked down at his coffee, and the other items that had been served with it. There were the usual sugar cubes and milk, but he didn't recognise the short blue stick sitting with them.

"Yeah." Paige said, between picky little bites of whatever else was in that bagel. "Like how humans are descended from monkeys, Chula are descended from wolves. Not Earth-wolves... but, y'know, close enough."

He had to make a concentrated effort not to contradict her oversimplification of the evolutionary theory. Humans were descended from the same common ancestor as monkeys, not directly from the monkeys themselves.

As he continued to frown at his drink, she asked, "You gonna use your valha root?" pointing to the blue stick.

"Not sure, yet... depends what it is." he muttered, frowning.

And wow, could this girl giggle. "It's a natural, healthy sweetener. You just melt or crumble it into your drink. Xa, you really don't know anything about city life."

Was that a swear-word, or just an exclamation? He decided he didn't much care. It served the same purpose, either way.

He very carefully picked the 'valha root' up and broke a tiny piece off the end, which he then put in his mouth. It was very sweet, and tasted a little bit like daffodils smelled. He wrinkled his nose slightly, "I think I prefer sugar."

She instantly snatched the remains of the root, and added it to her otherwise black coffee, along with her own portion of the strange alien plant. It was pure force of habit that this detail stuck in his head... filed right next to how Owen preferred extra milk in his coffee, and Tosh liked hers with a hint of cinnamon.

As if any of those details would ever be useful again.

He spent the next half-hour politely listening to her talk about her life. He only really took in that she worked in fashion, never knew her father except for the fact he was human, and her mother lived on the Chula homeworld. He did also pick up a few tips about the best place to buy everyday groceries from, and which of the six pizza places in their delivery range was the best.

The food and coffee here were both really good, so he decided to trust her judgement on the rest, as well.

x x x

By the next afternoon, Kael had finally settled in to his new home, finished reading the Time Agent's Handbook, and even figured out how to cook with fifty-first century technology... which was literally a matter of pressing a button, choosing what you wanted to eat from a very long list, and then pressing the button again. He _had_ actually gone to the trouble- out of morbid curiosity- of reading the manual, to try to figure out how the machine worked, as well.

It used some long and overly detailed string of technobabble- strongly resembling matter-transporters from shows like Star Trek- to rearrange the structure of a cheap (and _disgusting_) 'nutrient paste' on a molecular level, into actual meals that looked, tasted and smelled like the food they were supposed to be imitating.

Unfortunately, the machine did not make good coffee.

Everything else he had tried from it was palatable... just not particularly good. He supposed this lack of quality was what kept the coffee shops, restaurants and take-out places in business.

The Agency Handbook had taken him just as long to get through as the instructions for that evil cooking device Max had bought for him. It was also a surprisingly uninformative read, not telling him much at all that he hadn't already seen in the selection of sci-fi movies that Jack had unsubtly hinted were theoretically plausible, during their time at Torchwood.

He decided there was one more thing he really wanted to do before he had to start his training.

He had to find out if Jack was here.

He had two options. Ask Max to let him see the Agency records, or ask Tam to tell him about everyone here. No contest. While he didn't dislike Tam, he really didn't want to hear every other Agent's dirty little secrets in his first week. That was a project that he would prefer to take his time over.

"Back so soon?" Max asked, as Kael wandered into his lab, "Miss me already?"

Kael chuckled, "Am I seriously allowed down here whenever I want?" he asked sceptically, "Nobody tried to stop me."

"Well, you're allowed to come see me whenever. I told the guards so." Max explained, "If I'm not here, though, they'll redirect you. Nicely."

"'Nicely'?" Kael asked warily.

"Yeah." Max drew that word out a bit too long for it to sound quite right, "The not-nice version involves lots of guns and shouting. Handcuffs... gags... I promise it's not as fun as it sounds."

"Right." Kael said with sardonic cheer, "Well, can I borrow a computer for a minute?"

"I thought I bought you your own?" Max said dismissively, already turning one of the three screens in front of him so that Kael could use it, in spite of what he was saying.

"Yeah, but I want to look up Agency records." Kael said blithely.

Max was at his side in a second, grinning maniacally, "Starting early, are we?"

"Starting what?" he asked with blank innocence.

"Plotting and scheming. Knowledge is a very valuable weapon- ah, I mean tool. Yes, tool. When applied properly, at any rate."

Kael stared incredulously at Max, who was quickly typing in access codes to bring up a screen with the Agency logo on it. "Something like that. Yes." he said dryly.

He somehow got the feeling, now, that the reason the guards had all recognised him was because everyone here actually did spy on everyone else. It was very disconcerting... yet somehow brought back fond memories of Torchwood One. He had met Lisa because she had taken it upon herself to as good as stalk him.

"Here we are. A full list of current Agency personnel." Max announced brightly, "Easy. And technically completely against the rules, but that's really not important, now is it?"

Kael chuckled, somehow finding Max's cheerfully irreverent attitude infectious, "Not in the least."

And he found he really believed that. Between John Hart and Warren Stone, the Time Agency had failed to make a good impression on him. Combined with Jack's negative attitude to it, when Ianto had tried to ask about that part of his life, and he really felt any rules the Agency had were literally made to be broken.

"It's only against the rules, if you get caught." he added for good measure.

Max laughed at this, "Too true." and turned his attention back to whatever he had been doing on the other two computers, before Kael had walked in.

Kael, in turn, focused on the list before him.

There were just over two hundred people currently on the Time Agency's payroll, and only about a quarter of them were active Agents. Even of those marked as active, they didn't seem to get sent off on missions all the time, and thus had other jobs within the building, to earn their keep in the meantime.

That thought was rather reassuring. Even once he became an Agent, himself, he wouldn't always be off looking for trouble, like they had in Torchwood Three.

He briefly scanned through the whole list, pausing to actually read only a couple of times. Once to skim over the rather extensive list of rules Warren had been caught breaking, during his time as an Agent. The other to glance at Max's surprisingly clean record.

There was no one who looked like Jack, there, at all.

He was absolutely certain that Jack wasn't his real name, and so he had been paying more attention to the pictures than names, when he had gone through the list. Still, nothing.

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. The few times he had asked Jack about this part of his life, it hadn't just been 'I don't want to talk about it'. It had been 'I was a different person then', with a strong insinuation of 'you don't want to know'. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to meet this 'different person'.

Then again, besides the obvious extenuating circumstances of Cyber-conversion, he really wasn't sure how a person could change dramatically enough to be thought of that way.

x x x


	7. This Isn't An Orgy

x x x

**Chapter 7: "This Isn't An Orgy, People. It's A Classroom."**

x x x

It had to be a bad joke that one of the first lessons for aspiring Time Agents was the relative perception of the passage of time. Because it really was starting to fly by.

Kael and Tam were supposed to spend a lot of their free time reading up on history. Tam didn't really take it that seriously, claiming he was a speed-reader- proving he was a bad liar- and then disappearing off to do something more fun. Kael, on the other hand, did put in the effort to learn the subject... which was quite extensive, ranging from the first recorded Earth civilisations right up to the century they were living in now.

Their actual 'lessons' were more of the practical variety. After briefly going over hand-to-hand combat with them herself, Leliana had started to bring in other Agents to teach them more specialised skills.

A woman named Lya- who had a wild mane of blonde hair, and only spoke at all when absolutely necessary- taught them the principles of survival in the wild, without technology. Tam had marvelled loudly at the concept of being able to make fire without any kind of lighter or match.

Kael subsequently spent two weeks giving him quiet but pointed 'you really are pathetic' looks, in retaliation for this outburst.

Lya didn't exactly look entirely human, but the differences were much more subtle than with Paige. And Lya was downright scary- she had nearly broken Tam's arm when he had flirted with her- so Kael really didn't want to upset her by asking about her lower brow and scaly forearms.

Instead, he looked her up on the Agency's records later, and discovered that her father was Iridian... a very unfriendly alien race, best-known for their love of slave-trading.

The person from whom they were expected to learn how to use and maintain weapons, Kael was surprised to find, was Gerak. The mean, rat-faced little man was- according to Agency records- Warren's partner (on an entirely professional level, because Time Agents always worked in pairs), and he seemed quite determined to pretend that he had never met Kael before.

It felt awkward, but in that way where neither person involved wanted to admit as much. And it turned out that when Kael managed to ignore this feeling, Gerak was actually a very good teacher. And he _really_ knew his firearms.

Then they met the Agency's best engineering expert, Davik Jet, who taught them the basic principles of how machines were designed in various eras. He then showed them the easy, logical method of taking a wild (yet somehow educated) guess at what meddling was likely to kill you and what was likely to make the machine in question work.

Davik was actually Gerak's older brother. Arrogant as hell, and from being in the room with him five minutes, Kael could tell that he was the type of ladies' man (jerk) who made all the other straight guys in the world jealous just by breathing. He flirted shamelessly with anything that could be called female (and this, Ianto was sure, included languages in which inanimate objects were mysteriously assigned gender), the one exception being Lya, who seemed to scare off even him.

But unlike most people Kael had met in this century- who would usually eye up those they found attractive, regardless of gender, even if looking was all they did- Davik's interests seemed entirely heterosexual.

That was another thing. Sex.

It seemed to be the general consensus, in this time, that sex was just another form of exercise. A fun activity for two or more participants, with absolutely no strings attached. Emotions like love and affection had nothing to do with it. Sure, sex was probably going to happen if you were in love, but it wasn't at all expected to work the other way around.

Kael really had trouble thinking of it this way. It had made him very uncomfortable, during his third week of training, when a random, attractive brunette had walked up to him in the main atrium of the Agency building, and bluntly asked, "Hey handsome, want to come up to my room, and have some fun?" He had politely declined her offer with the half-truth that he had work (by which he meant studying) to do.

Honestly, that could have waited.

While it wasn't uncommon to have a long-term sexual partner, the concept of monogamy was completely lost on these people. Everyone had sex with everyone else.

You were only considered to be in a relationship with someone if emotion was involved. Marriage was just a convenient legal arrangement for raising a family, and wasn't assumed to be connected to either love or sex (so basically, just like the twentieth century, there, then).

Still, even after over a year with the Agency, Kael found it very disconcerting when people he hardly knew randomly came on to him.

He knew Paige was flirting with him, too, whenever they shared breakfast before going to their respective workplaces most Thursday mornings. She was a nice enough girl, and he was quite certain that it was good for his mental health to have someone to talk to outside the Agency- to pretend to be (relatively) normal around- but he didn't consider her a real friend. And he really couldn't get past the fact that she had a tail, so he carefully avoided the subject with her.

It had been over a year since he had signed up to join the Time Agency, and his new body was still a virgin. Although that technicality was purely by virtue of the fact that he was still- even now- unsure and unfamiliar with the era he had been dragged back to life in.

He had known for some time that this- in his mind, irrelevant- detail would inevitably change, but he was still taken completely by surprise when Leliana approached him after one of their lessons in human psychology.

Tam had already left, eager as always to avoid spending any more time than was absolutely necessary on anything that could possibly be mistaken for education.

Leli smiled warmly, in a way that instantly put him on his guard. Her lessons in deception had taught him nothing quite so well as the fact that when she smiled she was always up to something.

"Kael, stay a moment." she said sweetly, standing a little to his right and placing a reassuring hand on his upper arm. It was one of the gestures she had told them was good for approaching a person with a subject you think they may be dubious of. Therefore he was now even more wary. "I want to talk to you about your sexuality."

Yep. Reason to be suspicious, alright. "What about it?" he asked, carefully pretending that he was in fact perfectly calm about what she had just said, and no of course he wasn't already planning six different ways to flee from this awkward situation before the conversation had even begun.

"You seem very introverted. I have to wonder." she frowned slightly, and feigned concern rather effectively, "Flawed genetics from Max, is it? Or are you just unsure of the protocol for such interactions?"

Kael opened his mouth to answer that. Then shut it sharply. So Max _was_ the biological father of his new body, then. He had suspected as much. "Well I kind of hope it's the second one." he answered in an offhand joking tone. He really didn't find this interrogation the least bit amusing, but morbid humour had always been one of his best defence mechanisms.

She stepped right in front of him, now, placing one hand on the side of his face, and looking him right in the eyes. "I would like to educate you in this subject." she said softly.

Uh oh, she was being serious.

Eye-contact is very important in the art of lying. If you could fake sincerity in that, you've got it made... and even Leliana had her tells. She knew better than to make eye-contact when she was lying, and had gone to great trouble teaching them how to avoid showing all the other known tells, rather than pretending it was possible to bluff that directly.

"Educate me? How, exactly?" he asked sceptically.

Her 'I'm up to something and trying to make you think I'm not' smile twisted into an amused smirk now, "Practical lessons." she said, too-sweetly. Before he could respond to this, her hand slid around to the back of his neck and pulled him into a deep, hungry kiss.

It wasn't the best kiss of his life (lives?)- that award would always go to Jack- but it certainly felt good. He couldn't think of any good reason to resist or reject her advances.

As soon as he began to return the kiss, she pushed him backwards. Her right foot had somehow found its way behind his ankle, and tripped him so that he fell heavily onto the training mat. Before he could get his bearings she was astride him, one hand pinning him down with her full weight on his shoulder, and her other hand down his pants.

x x x

"Sex is a weapon." she explained to him. "A tool. In the right hands as fine as an artist's brush, as powerful as any drug. You can get almost anything you want, with correct application of seduction and suggestion. And of course, sex itself... a natural high after which almost anyone will become significantly more compliant and helpful. The first rule of friendly negotiation; always try to do it over alcohol or after sex."

It made sense... in a twisted kind of way.

Leliana was, to put it politely, a truly prolific slut. This was why, while the other female Agents wore the same uniform style pants as the men, she always wore a skirt. Easy access.

Her 'lessons' continued on a regular basis... and were more of a challenge than one might expect, as she kept saying that she wanted him to display dominance... but more often than not, as soon they were alone in a room she was on top of him in seconds, completely in control of him, and he never even considered fighting over it.

Certainly would never have thought of saying 'no' to her.

Still, it gave him confidence, and he gradually began to accept the general view on sex in this century. To become more open to the offers of his co-workers.

He briefly spent some time with the aforementioned brunette. After checking her Agency record, to actually learn her name. It was Rena (full name Regina Selven, and she was a 'cross-contemporary medical scientist', which basically meant that she knew everything about medicine from all eras, from leeches to nanobots and everything in between).

He had approached her, even. It seemed the general opinion of most people that if you say no the first time sex is offered, then you're really not likely to change your mind, and so his change of heart had been a surprise to her... but clearly not unwelcome.

He even made out with Tam once. Admittedly, they had both been rather drunk... but he _was_ a good kisser.

Oddly enough, Tam had been the one to put a stop to that before it got serious, with the vague and distracted explanation that he preferred females, and while second base was fun there was no way he was gonna have sex with a guy (friend or not) when that girl across the bar had been eyeing him up for the last half-hour. Thus Tam had left, and Kael had ended up taking a cold shower that night.

He really hoped he wouldn't officially be partnered with Tam... that boy was unreliable in so many ways.

x x x

It was only a week before his training would officially be considered complete, now. For the most part, his other trainers had stopped wasting their time on him when he already knew everything they felt he needed to. They focused instead on Tam.

This left him spending even more time with Leliana.

He really wasn't sure what to make of her 'lessons', most of the time. Sure, it was fun, and she was _very_ good... but she seemed cold and detached, sometimes... like it really was just a job to her, even though she was always the one to initiate it.

Today, however, when she asked him to join her in her living quarters, after their lesson, Leli seemed almost nervous. She had always appeared to be very good at hiding her emotions, so Kael assumed that this slight edginess meant she was in fact downright terrified of something.

Her rooms had always felt rather creepy to him, giving off a near gothic air with dark wood furniture and deep red drapes. It just missed its target of perfectly seductive and wound up somewhere closer to vampire horror movie, all the while oddly clashing with the sliding doors that- while made to look like wood- were still quite obviously something lifted straight out of Star Trek.

Honestly, between Leliana's lair and Max's laboratory- not to mention the Director's Emperor Palpatine office- it was a wonder he hadn't run away from this place a long time ago.

Or caved in completely to the Agency's mentality, rented the Rocky Horror Picture Show on holovid, and thrown a party. He was still seriously considering that one as an option. It was something Owen would have done without a second thought.

Maybe if he got drunk enough after his promotion.

He was used to the room now, though, and barely batted an eye as he followed her over to the chair she chose to sit in. "Are you alright?" he asked, placing an arm around her shoulders, kneeling next to her and trying to seem reassuring. It was one of the tricks she had taught him herself, actually. He had never really been good at comforting others before he came here, usually preferring words to physical contact.

She smiled faintly, "Yes, of course." she answered, looking up not at him but at another door which he knew led into the bedroom. "I have one more test for you, before your promotion next week."

This could in no way be good. He stood, backing away from her one step, and now watching the bedroom door warily. And making sure that he had a straight line to the main door through which he had entered the room, in case he needed to make a run for it.

He had never yet run away from anything the Agency had thrown at him, but there was always a first time, and he was always prepared for the worst.

And, as it turned out, this was the worst.

The door slid open and who should step out but Warren. Kael spent a half-second of morbid (ancient) humour on the thought that the door should really have led to a closet.

Then he all-but yelped, "What's he doing here?"

Warren just folded his arms, leaning oh-so casually against the nearest wall, looking far too pleased with himself.

This man was the reason Kael always carried a dagger in his boot, when he went to work. He had done a very good job of avoiding Warren, over the last two years, and the last time they had come face-to-face like this, Kael had been eternally grateful for the fact that it had been in the main atrium _and_ under the Agency Director's watchful gaze.

Warren wasn't stupid. He didn't try anything in public. They had spoken briefly... Warren's continued interest in him had been made clear, as had Kael's desire to choke him to death with his own intestines. Creative threats, it seemed, were interpreted as encouragement.

Fortunately, the Director had swept down the stairs and asked to speak with Warren about a mission, and that had been the end of it.

Until now.

"It's easy to seduce someone you like." Leliana said simply.

Kael turned a sharp glare on her, "Who ever said I liked you?" he demanded darkly. He saw the hurt in her eyes, and felt cruel satisfaction in this.

"I want you to prove that you are capable of dealing with a person you don't like." she said coolly.

"I don't dislike him." Kael said, tilting his head to one side and returning his gaze slowly to Warren, "I hate him."

"Close enough." Leli said dismissively, "The Agency does not like employees who are unable to adapt to the situation. If you fail this test, you will not be promoted to active status."

She was using full words. 'Does not', rather than 'doesn't'. 'You will', not 'you'll'. It was an odd kind of calculating tension in her speech, which only happened when she was angling to gain something for herself. He made a mental note of it, even as he obstinately retorted, "If this is what it takes, then maybe I don't want that promotion after all."

"If a trainee fails, they have their memory wiped." Warren pointed out, with a smug grin. He thought he had already won... that there was no way Kael would ever back down from that threat.

This was blackmail. Rape, without the physical resistance. He didn't really have a choice, and they all knew it.

He frowned at Leliana, "What did you have to do to prove this point?" he asked her darkly.

She didn't answer, stared right at him, eyes entirely impassive. Whatever it was, it clearly didn't mean anything to her now.

"Well, come on then, darlin'." Warren said, stepping away from the wall, and further into the room, "You heard the lady."

No convenient spiked drink this time. No one in the room who was on his side.

He really only had one weapon to work with, and given Warren's size and strength, that wouldn't be much use in a straight fight.

He sighed, trying to feign defeat even though he already had a plan and knew he wasn't beaten yet. Much as he loathed the idea of this man touching him... he did close the distance between them quickly, and grabbed one of Warren's hands.

Sickened at the fact that this monster's skin felt soft. So human. It wasn't fair that he actually though the man _looked_ good, in spite of the caustic personality.

He forced a smile, as he looked up at the other man. Met his eyes. He didn't need to hide his disgust, it wasn't a secret. And his next words were entirely true, if not at all for the reasons that he was sure Warren would assume. "I may as well enjoy this." he said quietly. He hoped the tone was seductive.

He tried not to really think about the way the older man ran his fingers through his hair, and around to the back of his neck, leaning closer until Kael could feel his hot breath on his face.

Warren wanted to kiss him.

Instead, Kael pushed him back onto the couch forcefully. Warren had the nerve to laugh. Kael moved quickly, kneeling astride him and pinning his shoulders.

They were nose-to-nose, now.

Kael wondered if it was simple hatred, or some much darker sociopathic part of his mind that conjured up the shockingly satisfying, almost _beautiful_ mental picture of Warren with his eyes gouged out, bloodied metal ground into his shattered and splintered skull, like a failed Cyber-conversion.

He knew such thoughts weren't healthy... and the last time he had thought anything of the sort was when Gwen had been shot at trying to save the space-whale creature. The man who did it, shooting Rhys while aiming for her, never did entirely lose the scars Ianto gave him for it.

Kael took a deep, calming breath, closing his eyes and trying to think about _anyone_ but Warren. It really didn't work. He slowly leaned forward and kissed the man beneath him.

He felt hands slide up his thighs, to his hips. He tried to ignore it.

His own hand was moving for the dagger in his boot.

As soon as he felt the cool enamel handle of the weapon, he moved like lightning. All his combat training from both Torchwood and the Agency, all the time Jack had spent teaching him a fast-draw with a gun (it wasn't really _that_ different) it all paid off now, in his opinion.

Before Warren could react at all, Kael had sat up straight- thankfully breaking that kiss- and plunged the blade into his victim's shoulder. Twisted it hard. Blood spilled out onto his hand, and down Warren's white shirt.

He savoured the moment of victory far more than his conscience would like... staring at the blood with genuine pride, even as his face remained blank and detached.

It took a moment for the yell of pain to register in his mind, and by that time Warren had resorted to swearing, "What the _fuck!_ You rotten little shit!"

Kael twisted the blade once more, and Warren hissed at the pain, "Shut up." Kael said coldly. Warren gasped and his breath caught for a moment, but then he fell silent, staring up at him with pain written across his face. Kael felt an odd sense of disappointment that there wasn't any blood on his face as well.

"Whatever the Agency could possibly have sent me to acquire from someone as repulsive as you... I could get it just as easily this way."

He pulled the blade just a little to one side, so the flat of it pulled on the wound. It didn't cut more, but it did apply pressure to the injury and made Warren yell again.

Kael leaned closer, so his nose was practically touching Warren's... and then, "There is _no way in hell_ that I will _ever_ fuck you!" he shouted, as close to Warren's ear as he could get without losing eye-contact. "I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire! And if any part of you _ever_ touches me again, I will cut it off!"

Warren flinched, cringed, and looked away, entirely defeated.

Kael looked over to Leliana. She hadn't moved, but simply watched with slightly shocked fascination, one eyebrow raised and her mouth slightly open. When she saw Kael looking at her, she shut her mouth sharply.

"Do I pass the test?" he asked coldly.

She didn't answer, and Warren chuckled darkly in spite of his obvious pain. Kael felt the brief urge to cut deeper, but while he was sure Warren would survive his current injury, he didn't want to take the risk of pushing further.

He wasn't a murderer.

Leli frowned slightly, "Yes, Kael. You pass with flying colours." A brief hesitation, before she added with a dark smirk, "Crimson mostly."

Kael laughed, almost crowed with sick humour at her words. It was a relief as much as a victory, now.

Until... "Now Warren, while we have your full and undivided attention, I want that mission document." Leli said coldly, standing up with all the elegance and poise she was capable of projecting- which really was a lot- and approaching them both.

Kael sobered very fast, "What?" he demanded, looking up at her with shock, "He was blackmailing _you_ for this, as well?"

Leli shifted from one foot to the other, leaning backwards very slightly, but her evident discomfort didn't show on her face. "I want that mission." she stated simply.

Kael stared at her for a moment, still holding the dagger carefully where it was. He felt Warren shift slightly, and turned the blade very slightly to the side, once more. A hiss of pain, and Warren fell still again.

"Wait, wait. Let me get this straight." he said in his most dangerous tone, "This wasn't really a test was it? You just tried to whore one of your students out to his worst enemy for your own personal gain?"

Leli was obviously shocked by the accusation, "Now that's not entirely true. It _is_ standard to test a potential Agent's nerve in situations that make them uncomfortable, especially when it conflicts with their personal morals. But yes, the specific nature of this test was Warr's suggestion, when I told him I wanted that mission."

Kael was stunned. He had hoped that he was wrong. That after the last two years, she wouldn't just turn around and betray him like this. He wasn't really that surprised by it, but it still hurt.

"What mission?" Kael asked quietly. He saw Warren open his mouth to speak, and pre-empted him with, "One word out of you, you bastard, and I'll cut out your tongue and use it to patch up this wound." he turned the dagger one more time for emphasis.

Leli flinched, clearly not having realised that one of her students was capable of quiet this level of viciousness until now. Kael had always been the quiet one, while Tam had acted out. He had _always_ been the quiet one, throughout his whole life.

"It- it's a millennium mission." she explained uninformatively, "I've known Agents to do much more degrading things than this to get them."

"Such as...?" Kael asked coldly.

"Well one Agent managed to kill himself, challenging Rex to a drinking contest to try to win one." she said rather quickly, "And I heard that Vik once smuggled six Denvarian slugs through Earth Customs to get one from Rena."

He felt Warren shudder beneath him in disgust, and decided to quite carefully _not_ try to figure out just how such creatures might have passed Customs in this century.

"And precisely _what_ is a millennium mission, anyway?" Kael asked bitterly.

"What it sounds like. An Agency issued mission that will cover the turn of a millennium, or other major temporal landmark for their local planet." Leli explained calmly, "Aside from being incredibly rare, and a status symbol in their own right among the Agents... there's always a party."

"A party." Kael said darkly, "You tried to _sell_ me to this piece of shit for a _fucking party_?"

Leli looked genuinely afraid of the anger Kael was displaying now, "I'm sorry, Kael, I didn't realise you hated him _that_ much."

Kael stared at her for a second, before answering, pained, "My first week after I woke up in Max's lab, this bastard tried to rape me. That kind of thing generally leaves a bad first impression." he said, in a soulless impersonation of his usual tone of morbid humour.

A weak whimper from Warren drew their attention back to him, "Look, just take the fucking mission, Lels." he gasped, "Please... just let me go to sickbay."

"I said one more word..." Kael snarled, not genuinely meaning to follow through on his specific threat but raising his arm to punch Warren, certainly ready to give him a black eye at the least. But Leli was faster, and she caught his hand before he could do anything.

"Just leave, Kael." she commanded, before leaning over and whispering in his ear, "My test was a woman the Agency had brought back for interrogation. History said that she died of a plague the day they took her, but in order to have the time properly question her, the interrogator gave her a cure. She told him everything and offered to do _anything_ for him, out of gratitude for her life. I had to kill her."

Kael blinked a few times, "Who was she?" he asked, standing up and backing away from Warren, allowing her to step between them.

Leli shook her head, "She was nobody. Just another historical statistic. Now go."

Kael glared at Warren for a few seconds more, and then backed slowly away from Leli. He didn't turn his back on either of them until he reached the door... and then he didn't stop running until he was safely back in his own apartment.

x x x


End file.
